SpaceX tests upcoming Starfall reentry vehicle with demonstration mission on Tuesday

Summer is “Go” for launch, and NASA has a universe of ways to help you to jump in, explore, and create! Whether you prefer to spend this season fueling your creativity, going outdoors into nature, or daydreaming about your future, NASA offers ways to take your interests to the next level.  Here are some opportunities…

MAÇÃO, PORTUGAL—Prehistoric human DNA has been detected on cave walls by an international team of scientists, according to a report in The Portugal News. Sara Garcês of the Institute of Earth and Memory and the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar said that more than 50 samples were taken from 24 rock art panels in 11 caves…

Coryn Bailer-Jones’ The Physics of Interstellar Travel fills a need which has become apparent only in the last twenty years. Indeed, going back to the turn of the century, one would find the idea of traveling to another star discussed only in relatively isolated pockets, often presented at the tail end of conferences devoted to…

For the first time, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has identified a planet orbiting a distant star thanks to ripples in space-time. Unlike the star-hugging transiting planets TESS regularly reveals, the newfound world is a super-Jupiter orbiting far from its host star. “When TESS launched, no one expected it to ever be capable…

For centuries, parchment manuscripts have preserved far more than the words written on their pages. Researchers have now uncovered a hidden layer of biological information locked inside these historic documents, opening a new avenue for studying the past without compromising the artifacts themselves. Historic parchments have long fascinated historians for the stories recorded in their…

Herculaneum papyrus scroll in the process of being scanned NAPLES, ITALY—Scientists have fully “unwrapped” an entire carbonized papyrus scroll preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, CNN reports. Known as PHerc. 1667, the scroll is one of a library of texts found in the eighteenth century at a villa in the ancient…