Since 2014, a strange and violent phenomenon has been unsettling scientists and local herders across the remote Yamal and Gydan peninsulas of western Siberia. Without warning, the ground itself explodes, blasting soil and chunks of ice hundreds of feet into the air and leaving behind a massive crater that can plunge more than 160 feet…
A striking new image released by NASA offers a rare, close up look at one of the busiest star forming regions in a neighbouring galaxy. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the photograph shows brilliant blue and white young stars glowing against a vivid backdrop of crimson hydrogen gas, a scene NASA has compared to…
Photographic view during the Static Test of SOLVE-ST01 NEW DELHI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted the first ground test of the solid motor for its Sub-Orbital Launch Vehicle for Experiments (SOLVE), a new test platform being developed to support the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme.The static test was carried out at the…
Quote of the day by Alan Turing (AI-generated image) Long before anyone had built a machine capable of holding a real conversation, Alan Turing was already asking what would happen the day one finally could. “If a machine can think, it might think more intelligently than we do, and then where should we be?” he…
Quote of the day by Neil deGrasse Tyson (AI-generated image) Most professions reward certainty. A doctor is expected to diagnose, a lawyer to argue a clear position, a manager to make a firm call. Science runs on the opposite instinct. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, put it plainly in…
Astronomers have detected light from a tiny but powerful galaxy that existed when the universe was still emerging from a vast fog of hydrogen gas. The discovery, made using the Hubble Space Telescope and confirmed with data from the James Webb Space Telescope and a giant telescope in Chile, gives scientists one of their clearest…
Out of all the planets in the solar system, Earth is held at the highest prominence. It’s consistent shift of the tectonic plates, existence of life and evolution have made it truly one of a kind.In contrast, Mars looks like a planet whose best days are behind it. Its volcanoes are extinct, its crust is…
‘Starry Night’ and Van Gogh Most people look at The Starry Night and see a moonlit village beneath a sky alive with swirling stars. Scientists looked at the same painting and saw something else entirely. Hidden within those famous blue spirals is a pattern that resembles one of nature’s most complex phenomena called turbulence.The Starry…
Representative image (Photo credit: AP) NEW DELHI: Before a baby’s first breath, life depends on an extraordinary organ that most people rarely think about – the placenta.Acting as the baby’s first life-support system, the placenta delivers oxygen and nutrients, removes waste products, protects the developing fetus and produces hormones essential for sustaining pregnancy.Yet, despite its…
Deep inside the cloud forests of Mexico, certain patches of bark and rotting wood begin to glow a faint, ghostly green once darkness sets in. The source is not the trees themselves but tiny mushrooms growing on them, fungi capable of producing their own light through a chemical reaction inside their cells. For years, very…