"Its occurrence is like finding a tropical seed in Arctic ice – indicating either an unexpected local environment or long-distance transport in the early solar system."
Scientists have launched menstrual cups into space for the first time, testing whether these reusable devices can withstand the extreme conditions of space travel. The AstroCup mission represents a key step toward giving female astronauts sustainable menstrual health options during long duration missions to the Moon and Mars.
Scientists have developed a new method to identify and map plastic waste in urban areas using satellite imagery, offering new hope for tracking pollution and improving waste management in cities worldwide. The team of researchers led by Elena Aguilar from the San Diego State University, discovered that common plastic materials have unique "fingerprints" when viewed through special infrared light sensors. Just as different materials reflect sunlight differently to our eyes, plastics reflect infrared light in distinctive patterns that satellites can detect. The WorldView-3 satellite, orbiting high above Earth, captures these invisible signatures with remarkable precision, down to areas as small as 4 meters across. This breakthrough could revolutionise how we monitor urban waste, particularly in areas where traditional ground based surveys are difficult or dangerous to conduct.
We've sent some pretty interesting payloads to space since the first satellite (Sputnik 1) launched on October 4th, 1957. As access to space has increased, thanks largely to the commercial space industry, so too have the types of payloads we are sending. Consider the Nyx capsule created by German aerospace startup The Exploration Company, which launched on June 23rd from the Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a Falcon-9 rocket as part of a rideshare mission (Transporter-14). The payload for this flight (dubbed "Mission Possible") included the ashes and DNA of more than 166 deceased people provided by Celestis, a Texas-based memorial spaceflight company.
The Sun isn’t just the center of the solar system—it is the solar system, in terms of mass.
Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that has been "frozen in time" for billions of years. Like a celestial dinosaur fossil, this galaxy could reveal the secrets of cosmic evolution.
NASA's Perseverance rover is digging deeper into Mars' geologic past as it begins grinding into rock surfaces to expose material that could hold clues to the planet's ancient environment and habitability.
If you could see the Universe through a radio-wave "eye", you'd detect mini-halos of relativistic particles creating radio emissions around some galaxy clusters. Astronomers long figured those halos are relative "recent" happenings in the nearby Universe and didn't occur in the early epochs of cosmic history. That's all changed now that the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio observatory in Europe has revealed newborn galaxies in the early Universe already surrounded by a halo of particles. It's a rare look at what such clusters were like soon after they formed.
"Project Hail Mary" is the upcoming outer space odyssey, based on Andy Weir's 2021 novel, that offers a stirring story of alien first contact.
As 'Apollo 13' turns 30, we talk to legendary NASA flight director Gerry Griffin who helped make the film as realistic as possible.
Ahead of Amazon Prime Day on July 8-11, this limited-time deal gets you $600 off a Nikon Z6 II bundle with a 24-70mm lens included.
"Each new detection brings us closer to understanding the origins of complex organic chemistry in the universe — and perhaps, the origins of the building blocks of life themselves."
Today is the last day you can get 60% off Disney Plus, which is the perfect pre-Prime Day streaming deal and in time for Fantastic Four's upcoming release.
The satellites were seen in the night skies near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
The Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) satellite, which is hosting the instrument for the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission, has been placed inside the nose cone of the Falcon 9 launch rocket and is ready for the scheduled liftoff at 23:03 CEST on Tuesday, 1 July.
World Asteroid Day 2025: Watch live views of near-Earth asteroids for free online on June 30
Ron Howard's classic celebrates the mission control geniuses who got the astronauts home.
With the aid of NASA's exoplanet-hunter TESS, citizen scientists have discovered a new gas giant that is cool, literally and figuratively.
NASA was to supply some critical technologies for the mission, which Europe may not be able to readily replace.
Video: 00:01:38
On 11 June, engineers at OHB’s facilities in Germany joined together the two main parts of ESA’s Plato mission.
Image: A starburst shines in infrared (MIRI)
All Rights Reserved. 2025. SpaceZE.com
