Category: The Moon

Our moon

DARPA unveils 6 new designs for uncrewed vertical-takeoff military aircraft, eyes 2026 test flights

NeRD

The U.S. military could soon have new uncrewed aircraft that carry weapons and take off and land vertically. The vehicles could undergo test flights as early as 2026.  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced it is moving into a new testing phase for proposed experimental aircraft in which designs will be assessed for risk and analyzed for efficiency.  The Advanced Aircraft Infrastructure-less Launch And Recovery (ANCILLARY) program will field designs for new, uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) carrying weapons. Specifically, the project aims to deliver X-planes capable of…

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Get a sneak peek at new ‘Alien: Rogue Incursion’ survival horror game (trailer)

NeRD

The “Alien” content just keeps on coming. In the aftermath of the 45th anniversary of the iconic film “Alien,” which just passed on May 25, the “Alien” universe is primed to erupt with an invasion of transmedia content over the next year. director Fede Álvarez’s “Alien: Romulus” is set to strike in August, for example, and we’ll also get more ongoing Marvel comics and a freshly-hatched “Alien: Rogue Incursion” virtual reality video game, which is coming in December for PS VR2, Meta Quest 3 and PCVR for Steam. Developer and…

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Watch SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy booster splash down in this epic video

NeRD

Watching Starship come back to Earth last week was perhaps even more exciting than seeing it rise off the pad. SpaceX launched its Starship megarocket for the fourth time ever on June 6, sending the giant vehicle into space from its Starbase site in South Texas.  The flight plan called for both of Starship’s stages — the Super Heavy first-stage booster and the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper stage, called Starship, or just Ship — to steer themselves back to Earth for ocean splashdowns. Super Heavy was supposed to come down in…

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‘We thought it was impossible:’ Water frost on Mars discovered near Red Planet’s equator

NeRD

Water frost has been spotted at the equator of Mars for the first time. In this region of the Red Planet, equivalent to its tropics, it was previously believed that it would be impossible for frost to exist.  The discovery could be crucial to modeling where water exists on Mars and how it is exchanged between the Red Planet’s atmosphere and its surface. This could be vital for future crewed exploration of Mars.  The water frost was seen by two European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft, first by the ExoMars Trace…

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Youthful galaxy in the early universe was a heavy metal rebel

NeRD

The most distant carbon ever seen has been discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in a galaxy that we see as it existed just 350 million years after the Big Bang. The detection is notable because not only is it the oldest carbon known, it is the first time that an element heavier than hydrogen or helium — what astronomers call “metals” — has been confirmed in the very early universe. “Earlier research suggested that carbon started to form in large quantities relatively late — about one billion…

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The Milky Way’s last major act of galactic cannibalism was surprisingly recent

NeRD

New findings from the Gaia space telescope indicate the Milky Way may have cannibalized a small galaxy not too long ago, cosmically speaking. In fact, the last major collision between our galaxy and another seems to have occurred billions of years later than previously suspected. The Milky Way has been long understood to have grown via a series of violent collisions, which see smaller galaxies ripped apart by the immense gravitational influence of our solar system’s spiral home. These collisions distribute stars from the devoured galaxy across the halo that…

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Sandworms rise from the sands of Arrakis in exclusive sneak peek at ‘Dune: The Graphic Novel, Book 3’

NeRD

The wonderfully rich world of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the past few years. There’s Denis Villeneuve’s big-screen saga, “Dune: Part One” and “Dune: Part Two,” for starters and Boom! Studios’ “Dune” comic book titles adapted from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s “Dune” prequel and sequel novels. There’s even an upcoming “Dune: Awakening” open world survival video game. Adding to the resurgence are the gorgeous hardback “Dune: The Graphic Novel” releases from Abrams ComicArts, accented with the fine work of artists Raúl Allén and…

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What is the 3-body problem, and is it really unsolvable?

NeRD

A rocket launch. Our nearest stellar neighbor. A Netflix show. All of these things have something in common: They must contend with the “three-body problem.” But exactly what is this thorny physics conundrum? The three-body problem describes a system containing three bodies that exert gravitational forces on one another. While it may sound simple, it’s a notoriously tricky problem and “the first real worry of Newton,” Billy Quarles, a planetary dynamicist at Valdosta State University in Georgia, told LiveScience. In a system of only two bodies, like a planet and…

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Astronauts test SpaceX Starship hardware and spacesuits for Artemis 3 moon mission (photos)

NeRD

Come 2026, NASA plans to land humans on the moon for the first time since 1972. Times have changed, as can be gauged from the new rockets, spacecraft and spacesuits.  To prepare for the Artemis 3 moon-landing mission, in late April two astronauts donned Axiom Space’s new spacesuits and for the first time tested out a mock version of the vehicle that will get them to the moon. Scientists and engineers say the test — the first of its kind since the Apollo era — provided feedback on how well…

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At long last: Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket set to debut on July 9

NeRD

Europe’s new Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket is set to launch for the first time on July 9 after a series of delays.  The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket, developed by ArianeGroup, will lift off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The date of the rocket‘s long-awaited inaugural flight was announced at the ILA Berlin air show on June 5; however, a specific launch time or window has not yet been released.  “Ariane 6 marks a new era of autonomous, versatile European space travel,” Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s director general,…

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