CNN By Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX launched the eighth integrated test flight of its gargantuan Starship megarocket system Thursday night. But rather than achieving objectives that fell short during its previous fiery test in January, the eighth flight also ended with a loss of the Starship vehicle. While the company
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By Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX launched the eighth integrated test flight of its gargantuan Starship megarocket system Thursday night. But rather than achieving objectives that fell short during its previous fiery test in January, the eighth flight also ended with a loss of the Starship vehicle. While the company was
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By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump is promising to unleash the US timber industry by allowing companies to raze swaths of federally protected national forests. The Trump administration quietly issued an executive order Saturday for the “immediate expansion” of commercial logging on federal lands, setting out deadlines for officials to figure out
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By Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A robotic lander named Athena has made its final descent to the moon’s surface, marking the second lunar touchdown for a US company this week. But the orientation of the lander is currently unknown. Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which last year became the first private-sector company to
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — NASA’s twin Voyager probes, which launched 47 years ago, are shutting off some science instruments in an effort to conserve power and keep their storied missions going. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are both exploring uncharted territory in interstellar space. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists have uncovered a collection of bone tools in northern Tanzania that were shaped by ancient human ancestors 1.5 million years ago, making them the oldest known bone tools by about 1 million years, according to new research. Researchers have unearthed stone tools that date back to at least
Continue ReadingBy Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — Firefly Aerospace, the Texas-based startup that on Sunday became only the second private-sector company to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon, has released video from the moment its Blue Ghost lander touched down on the lunar surface. Blue Ghost shared the footage after successfully deploying an X-band antenna, which
Continue ReadingBy Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Citizenship of Nauru, an island nation spanning just 8 square miles in the southwest Pacific Ocean, can be yours for $105,000. The tiny, low-lying island has launched a “golden passport” initiative with the aim of raising money to fund climate action. Nauru faces an existential threat from rising sea
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By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — The biggest iceberg in the world, named A23a, appears to have run aground after drifting around the Southern Ocean near Antarctica since 2020. Weighing nearly a trillion metric tonnes (1.1 trillion tons), A23a has come to a stop off the island of South Georgia, a British Overseas Territory in
Continue ReadingBy Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — It’s tiny, but this lab mouse could have a mammoth impact. With curly whiskers and wavy, light hair that grows three times longer than that of an ordinary lab mouse, the genetically modified rodent embodies several woolly mammoth-like traits, according to Colossal Biosciences. The private Dallas company is behind
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By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX is standing down from the eighth uncrewed test flight of its gargantuan Starship megarocket. The mission was expected to lift off during an hourlong launch window that opened at 5:30 p.m. CT (6:30 p.m. ET) from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in South Texas. But a couple of issues, including
Continue ReadingBy Elizabeth McBride, CNN (CNN) — In broad daylight, law enforcement officers raid a warehouse on the outskirts of the city of Sukhumi in Abkhazia, a Russia-backed breakaway Georgian region. No one’s there; no drugs or weapons either. Only a large cooling cabinet containing dozens of electronic devices. This is a cryptocurrency mine. A video
Continue ReadingBy Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — An uncrewed spacecraft developed in the United States has successfully soft-landed on the moon, making Texas-based Firefly Aerospace only the second private-sector company ever to complete such a feat. Firefly’s 6.6-foot-tall (2-meter-tall) Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the moon’s near side around 2:34 a.m.
Continue ReadingBy Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — Leonardo da Vinci excelled in the fields of art and science, but the Italian polymath was also a highly skilled expert in military structures and defensive systems, breaking new ground in the strategy of warfare during the Renaissance with his designs and inventions. Now, scientists have uncovered a hidden
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By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — Federal regulators have cleared the way for SpaceX to launch another test flight after its Starship spacecraft — part of the most powerful launch system ever constructed — exploded during a January test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said Friday that it will allow
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Mars may have once hosted an ocean with waves that lapped against sandy beaches 3.6 billion years ago, according to new research. China’s Zhurong rover and its ground-penetrating radar detected the ancient shorelines when it operated from May 2021 to May 2022. The rover landed in Utopia Planitia, a
Continue ReadingBy Chris Lau, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — Pandas famously love bamboo but the fluffy mammals actually have digestive systems typical of animals that eat a meat-based diet – and Chinese scientists now think they know why. They say gorging on the tall, fast-growing plant can influence the covert carnivores’ behavior and regulate the bears’
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — February ends with a treat for sky-gazers: a parade of seven planets across the night sky, including Mercury, Uranus and Neptune alongside typically bright planets such as Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. But glimpsing all seven won’t be easy, astronomers say. While the seven planets will all be above
Continue ReadingBy Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Glass rarely forms naturally from organic materials. However, in 2020, researchers discovered a black, glassy substance inside the skull of a person killed during the eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Now, the scientists say they have worked out the sequence of events that likely killed the
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Blue Origin’s next crewed flight mission aboard its tourism rocket, expected to lift off this spring, will carry an all-female crew to space. Journalist Gayle King, singer Katy Perry and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen are among the six-person crew who will launch on the New Shepard vehicle. They
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