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Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, has won a contract to supply engines for United Launch Alliance's massive Vulcan rocket, the companies said on Thursday. While Blue Origin has been seen as the front-runner for the contract for months, the win is a significant milestone for the Seattle-area aerospace company as it vies to become a player in the market for lucrative US military satellite launch contracts. Choosing Blue Origin's made-in-America BE-4 engine for the next-generation heavy-lift Vulcan launch vehicle is part of ULA's path to ending US reliance on Russia's RD-180 engine for national security missions. That engine currently provides the main power for ULA's legacy workhorse, Atlas V, which the Vulcan will eventually replace.

Famed astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered the first four moons of Jupiter way back in the early 1600s. More than 400 years later, astronomers are still finding moons orbiting the solar system’s largest planet. We’re not just talking about one or two stragglers, either. Astronomers from the Carnegie Institution for Science have spotted 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing the total to 79. The Carnegie Institution team, led by Scott Sheppard, didn’t set out to find even a single new Jovian moon. The team’s goal was to scan the sky for evidence of a massive ninth planet in the outer solar system. Many scientists are on the same quest, believing that a ghostly gas giant out past the orbit of Neptune could explain a number of orbital quirks in other objects. Sheppard realized last year that the team’s search zone for a ninth planet overlapped with Jupiter’s orbit. So hey, why not look for some more moons?

Boeing has dreams of a hypersonic passenger plane, and it looks like something straight out of science fiction. The  hypersonic aircraft  could have "military or commercial applications" and is just one of several such vehicles Boeing engineers are studying to develop superfast transportation technology, the company said in a statement. In an artist's concept, the plane looks sleek and futuristic, with extremely swept-back wings, twin tails and a sharp, pointed nose. Hypersonic aircraft are capable of traveling at speeds of Mach 5 and beyond. Mach 5 is about five times the speed of sound, or 3,806 mph (6,125 km/h) at sea level. NASA's space shuttles, for comparison, traveled at Mach 25 when re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The U.S. military has tested  hypersonic weapons that hit Mach 20  in the past. [Supersonic! The 11 Fastest Military Airplanes] Boeing unveiled its hypersonic passenger plane concept Tuesday (June 26) in Atlanta at the 20...

Photo Credit: Airbus A ball-shaped artificial intelligence robot nicknamed the "flying brain" because it is trained to follow and interact with a German astronaut, blasted off Friday toward the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship. A new, spare hand for the station's robotic arm, an experiment to measure plant stress in space and a study of a new cancer treatment were also on board as the Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 5:42am (3:12pm IST). "We have ignition and liftoff! The Falcon 9 rocket powers the Dragon spacecraft toward the International Space Station," said a  NASA  commentator as the white rocket fired its engines and lit up the skies on a dark, Florida morning. The unmanned Dragon capsule carried 5,900 pounds (2,700 kilograms) on its 15th supply mission to the orbiting lab, as part of a $1.6 billion (roughly Rs. 11,000 crores) contract with NASA. Both the capsule and th...

In just five and a half weeks, Mars will  make its closest approach to Earth   since August 2003. This week, we can see the Red Planet just before midnight, low in the east-southeast sky, almost matching Jupiter in brilliance and glowing like a yellowish-orange ember. And Mars continues to brighten noticeably with each passing week.   If you have been following Mars since New Year's Day, you may recall that back then, it was shining in the zodiacal constellation of Libra, the scales. At that time, it was 181 million miles (292 million kilometers) from Earth. In contrast, by the end of next week, Mars' distance from Earth will have diminished to 42.3 million miles (68.2 million km); it now shines some 25 times brighter than it did at the start of this year. Also since Jan. 1, Mars has progressed on an easterly course through the background stars of the zodiac. It currently resides in the zodiacal constellation of Capricornus, the sea goat. But on June 28, that stea...

The Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) has discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size planet (with mass equivalent to 27 Earths and size six times of Earth's radius) around a Sun-like star, an official statement said on Thursday. This discovery is very important for understanding the formation mechanism of such super-Neptune or sub-Saturn kind of planets that are too close to the host star and as well as planet formations around Sun-like stars, said the Space Department statement . The planet will be known as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b. With this discovery, "India has joined a handful of countries which have discovered planets around stars beyond our solar system", it said. The research work has appeared online in Astronomical Journal of the American Astronomical Society. The discovery was made by a team of scientists and engineers led by Abhijit Chakraborty by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed "PRL...

NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars did not return a call from Earth yesterday (June 12) while enduring a massive dust storm that scientists have called "one of the most intense ever observed." "The Martian dust storm that has blotted out the sun above Opportunity has continued to intensify," NASA officials wrote in a mission update Tuesday. "The storm, which was first detected on May 30, now blankets 14 million square miles (35 million square kilometers) of Martian surface — a quarter of the planet." That means Opportunity's solar panels aren't getting enough sunlight to phone home from its Perseverance Valley location on Mars. This series of images shows simulated views of a darkening Martian sky blotting out the Sun from NASA\'s Opportunity rover\'s point of view, with the right side simulating Opportunity\'s current view in the global dust storm (June 2018). The left starts with a blindingly bright mid-afternoon sky,...

NASA’s Curiosity rover has found new evidence preserved in rocks on Mars that suggests the planet could have supported ancient life, as well as new evidence in the Martian atmosphere that relates to the search for current life on the Red Planet. While not necessarily evidence of life itself, these findings are a good sign for future missions exploring the planet’s surface and subsurface. The new findings – “tough” organic molecules in three-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks near the surface, as well as seasonal variations in the levels of methane in the atmosphere – appear in the June 8 edition of the journal Science. Organic molecules contain carbon and hydrogen, and also may include oxygen, nitrogen and other elements. While commonly associated with life, organic molecules also can be created by non-biological processes and are not necessarily indicators of life.  “With these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of...