A new study by Harvard astronomers has shed light on the enigmatic “little red dot” galaxies—compact, ruddy celestial bodies that populated the early universe. These galaxies, first revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), may have formed in slowly spinning dark matter halos, allowing gas to funnel directly into their centers and ignite rapid…
A team of Canadian geologists has confirmed that rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in northern Quebec are at least 4.16 billion years old, making them the oldest known rocks on Earth and providing a rare geological window into the planet’s earliest and most enigmatic era—the Hadean Eon. The findings, published in Science, resolve a…
The Axiom-4 mission has taken the Indian Air Force and Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla into space. The plane has already taken off at 12:01 p.m. on Wednesday, June 25. He accompanied mission specialists Tibor Kapu (Hungary) and Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski (Poland), as well as retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. Additionally, he conveys the notion that it…
Astronomers have discovered a giant gas planet orbiting a tiny red dwarf star, defying existing theories of planetary formation. The star, TOI-6894, is only 20% the mass of the Sun, yet it hosts TOI-6894b, a planet as large as Saturn. This unexpected pairing has left scientists puzzled, as small stars typically form rocky planets rather…
A recent study has revealed that half of the world’s population—approximately 4 billion people—experienced an extra month of extreme heat due to human-caused climate change between May 2024 and May 2025. The analysis, conducted by World Weather Attribution, Climate Central, and the Red Cross, found that extreme heat led to illness, deaths, crop losses, and…
Scientists have uncovered the oldest-known ant fossil, dating back 113 million years, in Brazil’s Crato Formation. The extinct species, named Vulcanidris cratensis, belonged to the hell ant lineage, known for its scythe-like jaws used to impale prey. This groundbreaking discovery pushes back the timeline of ant evolution by 10 million years, revealing their early global…
Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is set to travel to the International Space Station next month as part of an Axiom-4 mission, four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s iconic spaceflight on-board Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday. Singh made the remarks after reviewing the work of the Department of Space and the Indian…
A team of researchers led by Indian-origin astrophysicist Dr Nikku Madhusudhan claimed on Thursday to have found the strongest indication yet of extraterrestrial life, not in our solar system but on a massive planet, known as K2-18b, that orbits a star 120 light-years from Earth, New York Times reported. A repeated analysis of the exoplanet’s…
The Indian Space Research Organization on August 16 brought up the EOS-08 Earth Observation Satellite onboard the small Satellite Launch Vehicle-D3 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The small satellite launch-D3 in its third and final development flight took off from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 9.17 am.
