Categories

Space startup to launch India’s first private orbital rocket

Indian startup Skyroot Aerospace said Thursday it would hold the maiden test flight of the country’s first privately developed orbital-class rocket in the coming weeks.

Go to Source

What makes a star a star? A strange ‘in‑between’ celestial object is testing astronomers’ boundaries

A star called TOI-2155 lies around 1,350 light-years (839 trillion miles) from Earth. It is a little bigger, heavier and hotter than the sun, and it is not particularly interesting or unusual in itself.

Go to Source

Quantum gravity tests may mistake ordinary spacetime for superposition

Everything around us, from atoms and molecules to planets and galaxies, is governed by two extraordinarily successful theories of physics: quantum mechanics and gravity. Quantum mechanics explains the behavior of the microscopic world, while Einstein’s theory of gravity describes the motion of stars, black holes and the expansion of the universe. Yet despite their successes, physicists are still searching for a theory of “quantum gravity” that would unite them into a single description of nature.

Go to Source

How police from coast to coast are preparing for America 250’s biggest Fourth of July yet

From D.C. to California, agencies are expanding security with drones, traffic enforcement and marine patrols

Go to Source

Dallas PD relaxes dress code to allow more piercings, tattoos, hats

New regulations allow DPD officers to wear department-issued hats or hats from approved police associations, as well as a single nose stud and certain approved hand tattoos

Go to Source

Comet from another star has a composition unlike anything else in our solar system

Astronomers have revealed new details about the makeup and age of a visiting comet that was born around a distant star. They conclude that the composition of 3I/Atlas is strikingly different from any object found in our solar system.

Go to Source

Last-minute launch problem delays satellite rescue mission for NASA

A rush rescue mission to save a NASA space telescope remains grounded, this time because of a last-minute launch problem.

Go to Source

NYC budget drops funding for NYPD headcount increase

At a budget press conference, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he backed down from increasing the headcount; he estimated cost of the increase would have been $70 million

Go to Source

Scourge of satellites lighting up the sky could be mitigated with help of ultra-black coating

Astrophysicists working to tackle the growing impact of satellite constellations have pioneered a new ultra-black coating as one possible way to mitigate the problem.

Go to Source

Chicago superintendent announces retirement after 3 years leading PD

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling joined the police department in 1992 as a patrol officer, before later serving as the department’s counterterrorism chief

Go to Source

Quantum semiconductor design could expand search for dark matter

Dark matter accounts for 85% of the matter in the universe, but scientists still do not know what it is made of. A study, published in Physical Review Letters, by Rice University researchers proposes a detector design that could help search for axions, hypothetical particles that many physicists think could make up dark matter.

Go to Source

Analog gravity advance offers new insights into Hawking radiation from black holes

Hawking radiation is a form of radiation emitted by black holes, as theoretically predicted by Stephen Hawking. It suggests that black holes do not merely swallow matter—as had previously been assumed—but also emit very faint radiation themselves. This radiation has not yet been observed in space; instead, researchers use models in the laboratory that mimic the behavior of black holes.

Go to Source

LSST begins full operations with key contributions from Japanese researchers and engineers

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially begun full operations for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), one of the world’s largest astronomical imaging surveys. Behind the scenes, Japanese researchers and engineers are drawing on technologies and expertise cultivated through the development and operation of the Subaru Telescope to support the project’s software, systems and operations. More than 80 researchers from Japan are already participating in LSST science through access to its data. Looking ahead, the combination of Rubin’s wide-area survey and the Subaru Telescope’s detailed follow-up observations will help advance our understanding of fundamental mysteries of the universe.

Go to Source

New star activity catalog could sharpen hunt for habitable worlds

Searching for habitable worlds beyond our solar system involves more than having a planet orbit within its star’s habitable zone, the region where temperatures could be just right for liquid water to exist on the surface. On Earth, where water comprises approximately 75% of the planet’s surface, life is abundant. But what about the exoplanet’s star, specifically its activity and rotation? How could this influence how exoplanets are identified for current and future missions?

Go to Source

Cosmic dust could play key role in cracking long-standing mystery of solar corona heating

A researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has published a new study in The Astrophysical Journal suggesting that tiny charged dust grains near the sun may significantly influence how energy moves through the solar corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun. The discovery potentially rewrites how scientists understand why the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the surface of the sun itself.

Go to Source