This week, science reporter Isaac Schultz described a groundbreaking effort to measure the spin of a supermassive black hole, and a fascinating experimental archaeology experiment in which marines fought each otherto test how well ancient Mycenean armor works. Other science coverage included a botched SpaceX engine…
In our top stories this week, reporter Passant Rabie explores potential projects to visit and study asteroid Apophis when it performs a close encounter with Earth in 2029. Consumer Reports reveals that about 20% of fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S. may have unsafe pesticide levels, raising concerns about whether…
In our top science stories this week, data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft helped scientists calculate how much oxygen is being produced on the intriguing Jovian moon Europa (enough for a million humans to breathe a day, according to the study). Back on Earth, a German man got 217 covid-19 shots and is apparently doing…
In our top science stories this week, SpaceX must deorbit 100 Starlink satellites due to a flaw; a person in Oregon caught the bubonic plague from their pet cat; and the Perseverance rover’s SHERLOC instrument is on the fritz. Oh, and a grotesque AI interpretation of rat genitalia somehow made it past peer review.
Our top science stories this week include a physics experiment to turn light into matter, an update from NASA’s Juno mission (it’s about to make a close encounter with Jupiter’s moon Io), and a roundup of the best archaeological discoveries of 2023.
Space is hard, as the cliché reminds us, and that was plenty clear this week, as several groups ran into trouble: NASA with its aging Voyager 1 spacecraft, AstroForge with a struggling debut mission to prove asteroid mining can work, and a few missing-in-action satellites from a recent SpaceX launch. Back on Earth,…
