Science

The Sun is riddled with mystery. People on Earth are about 150 million kilometres away from the Sun and only have a limited view of the star. Add to that the fact that the Sun’s surface is scorching hot, and it’s constantly ejecting particles at a speed of around 1 million miles per hour. So,

Maharashtra will launch a Rs.200 crore fund to invest in deep tech startups from the state, which are preferably led by women and socially relevant, a senior official said on Friday. The “Maharashtra Innovation and Technological Development Fund” will be a Rs.200 crore corpus for early-stage startups in the state, Manisha Verma, the principal secretary

The detection of a new and strange fast radio burst originating from a galaxy located 3 billion light-years away has left astronomers puzzled. Fast Radio Burst or FRB are bursts of radio waves in space that are milliseconds long. Usually, these radio bursts occur and don’t repeat. However, in the latest observation, the radio burst

In what could lead to a better understanding of mass, scientists have discovered a new particle or a quantum excitation, which was previously undetectable, through a tabletop experiment. Named the axial Higgs mode, the new elusive particle is a magnetic relative of the mass-defining Higgs Boson particle. Currently, scientists use the Standard Model of Particle

According to a study, devices made of commonly available oxide and carbon-based materials can manufacture pure hydrogen from water for weeks. The discovery could aid in overcoming one of the major challenges in solar fuel production: present earth-abundant light-absorbing materials are limited in terms of performance or stability. The move to full decarbonisation and the

The discovery of a mysterious region in the South Atlantic, where the geomagnetic field strength is rapidly diminishing, has spurred fears that Earth’s magnetic polarity is about to reverse. However, according to a new study, the current alterations aren’t extraordinary, and a reversal is unlikely. The Earth’s magnetic field acts as a shield and protects

A 190-feet wide asteroid is going to approach Earth soon and NASA has already announced its approach. To give you some perspective, the asteroid is larger than the Colosseum (157 feet) situated in Rome. According to the space agency, the asteroid will make its closest approach to our planet on Wednesday, June 8. It isn’t

For the first time, scientists have constructed simulations that directly mimic the whole life cycle of some of the greatest collections of galaxies discovered 11 billion years ago in the distant universe. Cosmological simulations are essential for understanding how the universe came to be the way it is today, but many of them do not

A new study based on asteroids that collided with Earth has given some of the turmoil a chronological frame. Astronomers believe asteroids have remained virtually unchanged since their genesis billions of years ago in the early solar system. However, not all asteroids stayed intact. Repeated collisions gradually robbed the insulating mantles of their iron cores,

Jeff Bezos’ space tourism venture Blue Origin completed its fifth crewed launch on Saturday after a New Shepard rocket’s back-up system that had not met expectations delayed the voyage last month. Blue Origin’s fourth flight landed successfully in March in west Texas after taking six passengers for a 10-minute journey to the edge of space.

With an upgraded supercomputer and strategic modelling program, a team of geologists have successfully forecasted a volcanic eruption in the Sierra Negra volcano five months before it took place. The volcano forecasting modelling program was set up in 2017 by geology professor Patricia Gregg and her team. They installed the program on the Blue Water

NASA is set to launch a probe to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 10 that will monitor climate change on Earth. Named Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), this probe will study the composition of mineral dust from Earth’s arid regions and how the desert dust carried through the atmosphere affects the

In a step that may help achieve better network connectivity in the near future, scientists have developed a beam-steering antenna that enhances data transmission beyond 5G standards. This will give access to a range of frequencies for mobile communications that were earlier out of reach. With the size of an iPhone, the beam-steering antenna has

A team of international researchers from the US and the UK have received a grant of $750,000 to develop portable, rapid biosensors capable of detecting noroviruses and mycotoxins in foods and agricultural products. The researchers say noroviruses are the leading cause of foodborne illness globally and are highly contagious. They cause a pandemic every few

Making use of artificial intelligence, a team of scientists from the Boston College have shed light on the differences in the behaviour of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and its link with neuroanatomy. Autism or ASD is a complicated condition that is characterised by difficulties with communication and behaviour including problems with social interaction,

Sony on Thursday said it formed a new company that will build and supply devices that allow small satellites in orbit to communicate with one another via laser beams, dipping into the fast-growing space sector. Sony Space Communications, registered on Wednesday, is meant to take advantage of laser technology to avoid a bottleneck of radio

Online travel firm MakeMyTrip on Thursday said it has partnered with Climes, a climate-tech startup backed by Sequoia, to introduce carbon neutralisation options when booking a flight through its platform. Flyers who booked tickets through MakeMyTrip will find an option to neutralise carbon emissions via a link on their e-ticket from June 5 — World Environment

Top NASA officials on Wednesday said the payload integration of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission has been completed in the US and it is expected to be shipped to India after testing for integration with the satellite and eventually with the launch vehicle. NISAR is a joint earth-observation mission between ISRO and the

In a first, researchers have been able to preserve and repair a human liver, which was considered too damaged for transplant, in a machine over three days and then implanted the recovered organ into a cancer patient. Their success is set to have far-reaching consequences in the field of medicine as human livers for transplant

Seeking to further increase private participation, the government will soon unveil a new space policy that could see the rise of India’s own “SpaceX-like ventures”, Principal Scientific Advisor Ajay Kumar Sood has said. In an interview to PTI, the government’s top science advisor said consultations have taken place and the final version of the space