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Researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have engineered yeasts to convert PET plastic and agricultural waste into edible proteins and flavorings, producing 3D-printed cookies called µBites. The NASA-funded project aims to address food security in extreme environments, from disaster zones to Mars missions, though human taste tests await institutional approval.
India has clarified that discussions on leaders' public appearances are standard protocol for VVIP visits, following US Ambassador Sergio Gor's claim that New Delhi requested no press questions before PM Modi's meeting with President Trump, which Trump then turned into a 45-minute press conference. The government also cited Trump's 'unpredictable behaviour' as a reason for its cautious approach.
In November 1969, Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean accidentally pointed a new color television camera at the Sun, burning out its vidicon tube and ending live broadcasts almost immediately. The mishap, confirmed by later analysis, led to changes in camera handling on subsequent missions.
India marked National Space Day on August 23, commemorating the Chandrayaan-3 Moon landing, which made India the first country to reach the lunar south pole. As the nation celebrates, astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla highlights a bright but challenging future, with plans for crewed missions, a space station, and Venus exploration underway.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met founders of 20 Indian space startups on National Space Day, praising their courage and calling for an ecosystem that attracts worldwide talent. He stressed policy consistency, cost competitiveness and cross-sector collaboration while urging firms to build global businesses. The interaction highlighted the role of the Indian Space Policy 2023 in opening the sector to private participation.
US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor announced that the US-India trade deal is almost finalized in principle, with only legal and technical language remaining. He also distinguished Congress's push for 100% tariffs on Russian oil buyers from the Trump administration's stance, and highlighted the deep personal friendship between Trump and Modi, noting Secretary of State Marco Rubio's upcoming October visit.
The Freedom 250 Grand Prix brings IndyCar racing to the National Mall for the first time, with 250,000 expected attendees, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman in the pace car, and fans from across the country.
Rafael Devers was loudly booed in his first return to Fenway Park since his trade from Boston, while new Giant Marcelo Mayer was held out of the series with a foot injury. The Red Sox took a 2-0 series lead with a dramatic 3-2 walk-off win Saturday, extending the Giants' slide to 10 losses in 13 games.
NASA’s $3.3-billion Dragonfly rotorcraft is set to launch in July 2028 and explore Titan, where methane rain and organic chemistry raise questions about life beyond water. Meanwhile, a 2025 study proposes a mechanism for cell-like compartments in Titan’s lakes, though no such structures have been found.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 7:26 a.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 30. Mission leaders from NASA, the Roman team, and SpaceX completed a Flight Readiness Review on Friday, certifying the telescope for final launch preparations. Roman will help scientists investigate dark energy, exoplanets, and the evolution of the universe.
Astrophysicists at Syracuse University have resolved a long-standing puzzle about repeating partial tidal disruption events, showing that a star’s initial rapid rotation explains why light flares grow dimmer with each encounter. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, also links the phenomenon to the Hills mechanism, which may account for fast-orbiting stars near the Milky Way’s central black hole.
China has postponed its Chang'e-7 lunar mission, which was set to search for water ice at the moon's south pole. The China Manned Space Agency said the mission does not meet launch conditions and cannot take place during the planned window this year, without elaborating on the reasons. Some reports attribute the delay to poor weather from Tropical Depression Narra.
NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies have called off the mission to rescue the aging Swift gamma-ray telescope, citing ongoing attitude control issues with the LINK spacecraft. The telescope, which has studied cosmic phenomena since 2004, is expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere later this year. Despite the failure, the mission's data and upcoming rendezvous attempts aim to provide lessons for future satellite servicing.
New research suggests some Earth microbes could survive in shadowed areas of the Moon's South Pole, raising concerns about contamination as NASA and other nations prepare to return astronauts to the lunar surface.
A new study has uncovered a population of faint, rapidly fading remnant radio galaxies, suggesting that the final phase of a supermassive black hole's jet activity may be shorter than previously thought. The research, led by scientists at the University of Cape Town and the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy, examined 14 candidates and confirmed 12 as true remnants, with ages ranging from 8 to 42 million years.
A deep partial lunar eclipse will occur on Aug. 27-28, 2026, with about 96% of the moon entering Earth's umbra. Visible across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia, it will not be a true blood moon but will give the lunar surface a reddish or coppery hue. Observers in the Americas are best positioned, while those in India will miss the event.
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot made history as the first French woman to conduct a spacewalk, accompanied by NASA's Anil Menon. The nearly six-and-a-half-hour mission focused on replacing a faulty antenna, but stuck bolts prevented the full repair, prompting a revised plan for a future spacewalk.
French astronaut Sophie Adenot made history on August 18, 2026, becoming the first French woman to conduct a spacewalk at the International Space Station. She spent more than six hours outside the station alongside American astronaut Anil Menon, replacing a key antenna.
NASA's Curiosity rover has beamed back images of a Martian landscape covered in polygon-like features, the first such observation for the car-sized rover. The features, measuring 4-8 centimeters across, are hypothesized to be ancient mud cracks, possibly formed during a period when Mars had an Earth-like climate billions of years ago. Scientists say further study is needed to understand their formation.
New Hubble Space Telescope data provide evidence that a dwarf galaxy merged with the young Milky Way about 12 billion years ago, pushing back our knowledge of the galaxy's history by 1.8 billion years. The findings, published in Nature Astronomy, identify a third population of globular clusters associated with the merger.