Dreams of exploring the cosmos have crashed up against the harsh reality of budget cuts in the United States. Congressional approval of the 2024 federal budget earlier this year left NASA with roughly half a billion dollars less than the agency had in 2023 — and Mars science has taken the biggest hit. Engineers are …
SpaceX is finally upping the spacesuit game. While the new Artemis spacesuit revealed last year was exciting, SpaceX’s new spacesuit takes things a step further, even offering great mobility, a more streamlined design, and a head-up display (HUD) to keep astronauts informed of the status of their suit’s onboard systems. Spacesuits really haven’t changed all …
Schematic diagram of research station location and regional environment. Credit: Yu Zhaojie In a study published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science on April 18, researchers from China, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have reconstructed the weathering history of the Western Pacific island arc over the past 140,000 years, combined …
Mount Ontake in Japan rises 3,067 meters above sea level — a windswept giant standing head and shoulders above densely forested hills. This ancient volcano is a popular trekking site. A trail traverses its ash- and boulder-strewn ridges. There are several huts and a shrine. On September 27, 2014, hikers took advantage of a blue …
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The first space shuttle mission of 1984, the launch of Challenger on the cool, windless morning of Friday, February 3, was apparently perfect—and eagerly trailed by a national press anticipating the first flights of what they called the “Buck Rogers jetpacks.” Formally known as the Manned Maneuvering Unit, the invention was a massive backpack equipped …
Of the 14 tropical glaciers that existed in Colombia in the early 20th century, only six remain. Just a few months ago, the Colombian mountain peak of Ritacuba Blanco was covered in an unbroken layer of white ice and snow, just as it had been for as long as anyone can remember. But with the …
Conceptual art representing ChemCrow. Credit: Ella Maru Studio Chemistry, with its intricate processes and vast potential for innovation, has always been a challenge for automation. Traditional computational tools, despite their advanced capabilities, often remain underutilized due to their complexity and the specialized knowledge required to operate them. Now, researchers with the group of Philippe Schwaller …
Identification chart of variable stars in the field of NGC 2419. The approximate size of each images is 6.9 × 6.9, 2.5 × 2.5 and 1.6 × 1.6 square arc minutes. Credit: Ferro et al., 2024. Using the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) and ESA’s Gaia satellite, astronomers have explored a galactic globular cluster known as …
Engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State University have combined ancient paperfolding and modern materials science to create a soft robot that bends and twists through mazes with ease. Soft robots can be challenging to guide because steering equipment often increases the robot’s rigidity and cuts its flexibility. The new design overcomes those problems by …
An Ibex stands on Jargalant Mountain in Mongolia’s western Khovd province, where vulnerable habitat is shrinking amid surging livestock numbers. The icy peaks of Jargalant Mountain are supposed to belong to snow leopards, whose numbers have dwindled to fewer than 1,000 in Mongolia, but hard-pressed herders are increasingly pushing into the vulnerable animals’ traditional habitat. …