Daily News update on – Science

Spaceflight Now

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket fired off its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Friday on a six-hour climb to geosynchronous orbit, deploying a classified payload and a U.S. Space Force satellite to test an improved infrared heat-sensitive sensor design …

Space.com

Virgin Orbit’s carrier plane, a modified Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl, lifted off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Southern California on Saturday (July 2) at 1:49 a.m. EDT (0549 GMT; 10:49 p.m. local time) with the company’s LauncherOne rocket …

Spaceflight Now

NASA’s powerful new Space Launch System moon rocket will be hauled from its launch pad back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center overnight Friday into early Saturday morning for final repairs, testing and closeouts, …

Space.com

The international team of scientists will image the stellar nursery’s small, faint residents — primarily brown dwarfs and rogue planets — which have been difficult to see with less-powerful telescopes. Brown …

The New York Times

This month will mark a new chapter in the search for extraterrestrial life, when the most powerful space telescope yet built will start spying on planets that orbit other stars. Astronomers hope that the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal whether …

Space.com

A missile-warning satellite and another spacecraft are on their way to orbit to help the U.S. military get better at tracking fast-moving threats. The two U.S. military surveillance satellites lifted off today …

Reuters

The research amassed new data on bone loss in astronauts caused by the microgravity conditions of space and the degree to which bone mineral density can be regained on Earth. It involved 14 male and three female astronauts, …

BBC News

When the penguins poop on Antarctica’s Elephant Island, a little bit of magic happens in the soil. Chemical reactions produce a dull brown mineral called spheniscidite. It’s unique and reflects the special conditions that exist only in that locality.

Space.com

Scientists believe that, if life ever existed on the Red Planet, this area could harbor ancient biomarkers, or “molecular fossils,” of organic molecules created by living organisms billions of years ago, according to a statement from NASA.

UB News Center

In a new study, scientists use gene expression patterns, called transcriptomics, to investigate the ancient origins of one organ: the placenta, which is vital to pregnancy. “In some mammals, like humans …