NASA today launched its latest spacecraft to Mars, a $2.7 billion mission to explore the planet's minerals and look for signs of life. Mars is now the focus of an interplanetary space race including China, Russia, the U.A.E. and the European Space Agency.
Toilet paper and frozen vegetables are making a comeback, but other backlogs are causing bare shelves and higher prices. A charts-filled look at the supermarket during the pandemic.
Why launch now? NASA, China and the U.A.E. timed their launches to take advantage of when Earth and Mars are closest, which happens every two years, to make the journey as fuel-efficient and cost-effective as possible
Fossils unearthed in a limestone cavern in what is now the Philippines turn out to be part of a previously unknown human species that roamed the island about 50,000 years ago via
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Two months after landing, it will deploy the first helicopter to be flight-tested on Mars. If successful, future missions could use such drones as scouts for human crews, to carry small payloads or to scout distant terrain, NASA says.
The reopening of America is taking place in patchwork fashion, with wide differences between—and even within—states about ending coronavirus lockdowns via
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The most valuable commodity on Mars is frozen water, which would be needed to drink or be used as a source of oxygen and hydrogen for fuel in future Mars endeavors. Surface ice deposits are estimated to be as much as the entire Greenland ice cap.
Many of the experiments aboard NASA’s rover, Perseverance, are designed to look for signs of habitable conditions. The rover—the largest and heaviest NASA has launched—will test whether it can produce pure oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The Dali containership lost power several times before it crashed into and caused the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report
'Black Panther' has become one of the most successful movies ever in a near-record amount of time, completely dominating the winter box office in the process
Nearly all of Trump's routes to 270 electoral votes go through Florida. If the president wins that state and Ohio, Biden's hopes of defeating him could depend on Wisconsin. Map each candidate's paths through battlegrounds. via
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The China Evergrande debt crisis by the numbers. Home price-to-income ratios in China’s big cities make New York, London and Paris look cheap. via
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A comparison of a NASA astronaut in orbit and his identical twin on Earth found spaceflight caused a cascade of biomedical changes, while suggesting how to manage them on long missions to the Moon and Mars via
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Graphic by
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