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The principles of rocketry were first tested more than 2,000 years ago, but it’s only been within the past 70 years or so that we have built rockets to explore space. Today, rockets routinely loft spacecraft off Earth, sending satellites to low-Earth orbit or cargo to the International Space Station. And with the commercial space … Read more
New Scientist’s weekly round-up of the best books, films, TV series, games and more that you shouldn’t miss Humans 2 February 2022 Read Strange Bedfellows accompany many of us through our lives, yet most of us know next to nothing about common sexually transmitted infections. Ina Park aims to change all that in this upbeat … Read more
NASA has a lineup of discussions ready to discuss the impact of Black History Month in space exploration. From highlighting the African Americans who have flown in space, to the Black people who work at senior levels of the agency today, NASA’s Black history discussions will include webcasts and other live events to continue the … Read more
The history of the universe and how it evolved is broadly accepted as the Big Bang model, which states that the universe began as an incredibly hot, dense point roughly 13.7 billion years ago. So, how did the universe go from being fractions of an inch (a few millimeters) across to what it is today? … Read more
Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has provided a dazzling array of images that have awed and inspired the public. But Hubble’s about far more than just pretty pictures. The mission has gathered dozens of terabytes of data over the decades, providing key insights into the universe, from objects as close … Read more
By Michael Marshall WHO were the first people to reach the Americas? When did they get there, and how? These are among the most mysterious questions in prehistory, and have long been studied using traditional archaeology: bones, artefacts and so on. In recent years, however, the field has been revolutionised by genetic data. DNA from … Read more
By George Bass HOW did humans progress from measuring time with stone solstice markers to a smart watch on which it is also possible to read this review? In A Brief History of Timekeeping, Chad Orzel, physicist and author of bestselling book How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, turns his enthusiasm for time … Read more
Astronomers are constantly learning new star facts as space exploration and technology evolves. To make sense of these new findings, it’s important to know the basics. Stars are giant, luminous spheres of plasma. There are billions of them — including our own sun — in the Milky Way galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies … Read more
Humans have tracked time in one way or another in every civilization we have records of, writes physicist Chad Orzel. In his new book A Brief History of Timekeeping (BenBella Books, 2022), Orzel chronicles Neolithic efforts to predict solstices and other astronomical events, the latest atomic clocks that keep time to ever more precise decimals … Read more
When Sandra Evans Walsh was growing up in Parowan, Utah, her class would sometimes trek outside to a row of trees. They were about to watch history in the making, the teacher would tell them. The kids would then stare as an orange shroud spread across the sky. “I remember the clouds coming over our … Read more