NASA hopes its snake robot can search for alien life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus
At least 83 moons orbit Saturn, and experts believe its most reflective one could harbor life underneath its icy surface. To find out, NASA scientists …
Tag: Space
Robot plants could be used to grow infrastructure in space from scratch
This article was original featured on MIT Press.This article is excerpted from Dario Floreano and Nicola Nosengo’s book “Tales From a Robotic World.” In the …
Name a better duo than NASA’s hard-working Mars rover and helicopter
On April 19, 2021, a little more than a century after the Wright Brothers’ first test flight on Earth, humans managed to zoom a helicopter …
Japan’s ispace lunar lander appears to have crashed into the moon
A commercial lunar rover, developed by the private Japanese company ispace in partnership with the United Arab Emirates, appears to have failed to achieve a soft …
SpaceX’s Starship launch caused a ‘mini earthquake’ and left a giant mess
Last week’s much-hyped test flight of SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever constructed, ended in a fiery explosion minutes after launch, falling far short …
Watch SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket explode
SpaceX’s mega-rocket Starship exploded earlier today. Using a Super Heavy booster for the first time below Starship itself, the entire vehicle assembly failed minutes after …
NASA’s 600-pound solar radiation tracker is plummeting to Earth tomorrow
Heads up, everyone: a 600-pound, decommissioned satellite is on track to fall from orbit on Wednesday. While most of it is expected to burn up …
You saw the first image of a black hole. Now see it better with AI.
Astronomy sheds light on the far-off, intangible phenomena that shape our universe and everything outside it. Artificial intelligence sifts through tiny, mundane details to help …
This online atlas is a goldmine for amateur intelligence sleuths
In Overmatched, we take a close look at the science and technology at the heart of the defense industry—the world of soldiers and spies. ON …
Super-thin ‘mirror membranes’ could lead the way to bigger space telescopes
It took years of design and engineering toil to successfully get the largest-ever telescope mirror into space. Now, the James Webb Space Telescope’s trademark, 6.5-meter-in-diameter, …