The fireball seen in the sky from across Western Washington and British Columbia, followed by a sonic boom, was indeed a meteor which was travelling slightly east of north at a speed of about 33 kilometres per second, or about 119,000 km/h, reports confirmed. Several people called the police without understanding whether it was an…
As the US plans a long-duration mission to the Moon under the Artemis Programme, one of the biggest challenges that the scientists face is what astronauts will eat in space. This challenge has led researchers to explore whether crops can be grown directly using material present on the Moon.A recent study led by researchers from…
Maria Goeppert Mayer (Image source: Wikipedia) Maria Goeppert Mayer is remembered as one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. She was born in Germany in 1906 and later moved to the United States, where she worked in theoretical physics. She was the second woman ever to win the Nobel Prize in Physics,…
Recently, the rare scientific phenomenon received global attention after reports from Tehran in March 2026 indicated that residents observed ‘dark rain’ following airstrikes on oil storage facilities. This led to massive fires that released thick smoke into the atmosphere. When rain clouds formed over the city, the raindrops fell into the clouds, thus forming dark…
Asteroids regularly pass through Earth’s cosmic neighbourhood, and most of them never attract public attention. Every so often, though, a newly discovered space rock sparks curiosity among scientists and space enthusiasts. That was the case with asteroid 2024 YR4, an object first detected in late 2024. Early calculations suggested it might pass unusually close to…
PC: University of Waterloo In this world, plastic is the most stubborn waste. Normally, the plastic waste gets disposed of via municipal collection, which leads to open-pit burning or dumping in local waterways. However, no one must have imagined that plastic waste can even be turned into vinegar (acetic acid). Remarkably, this is now a…
Ever wondered how those weird, floating “snowmen” way out in the deep freeze of the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune’s orbit manage to stick around? These oddly shaped, double-lobed rocks called contact binaries, like the famous Arrokoth look fragile, yet they’ve survived billions of years without crumbling apart. Astronomers have been searching for an answer for…
Credit: NationalGeographic Most of the research conducted around rising oceans might have misjudged the rising coastal hazards by an approximate of 20 to 30 centimetres. Out of 385 expert-reviewed studies published between 2009 and 2025, around 99 percent incorrectly estimated ocean height. Researchers suggest this might have caused a lag of almost a hundred years…
What is the most important step that humanity must take to avoid extinction? According to the late physicist Stephen Hawking, the answer lies far beyond Earth. One of his most striking warnings concerned the future of human civilisation. Hawking, in his lecture at NASA’s 50th Anniversary, addressed how the human race can’t survive on Earth…
Shubhanshu Shukla reveals how astronauts stay fresh in space (Image source: Wikipedia) Shubhanshu Shukla in his recent X post, continuing the series following his insights on his journey in space, describes what follows astronauts getting ready in the International Space Station (ISS). Shukla is the first Indian to visit the ISS and only the second…
