California News and Insights
NASA has awarded Firefly Aerospace a contract for its third lunar lander mission, slated to launch in 2028. Announced on December 18, the $179.6 million task order is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and focuses on exploring the Gruithuisen Domes region
NASA is planning to fly another high-profile science mission using SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. Today (Nov. 25), the ESA said it has selected the Falcon Heavy to launch Dragonfly, a $3.35 billion mission that will explore Titan, Saturn’s massive moon, for habitability. Additionally, the
When NASA’s Voyager 1 resurfaced after a temporary loss in interstellar space this month, it was interacting with a transmitter it hadn’t used in over 40 years. NASA is currently resolving the problem. The issue started on October 16 when Voyager 1 received a command
Scientists have shown in recent decades that chimpanzees, like humans, transmit complex civilizations, including the use of tools, from one generation to the next. But as new developments have been adopted, human culture has advanced significantly from the Stone Age to the Space Age. The
For the first time, researchers have examined the frozen bones of a 35,000-year-old saber-toothed cat and discovered “significant differences” between it and a contemporary lion cub. According to a report released Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, the cub’s mummified remains was discovered in the
From Santa Barbara County’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, SpaceX launched a new set of its Starlink broadband satellites into orbit. 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 with Direct to Cell capabilities, were launched by the corporation using a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX has previously launched rockets
Observers in the southwestern United States saw what appeared to be a fireball fragmenting in the night sky, however it was discovered that the shooting star was man-made and not a result of three meteor showers that were already occurring. The American Meteor Society has
Scientists have proposed that a hidden ocean of water on an unwary moon that lurks in our solar system may potentially be home to extraterrestrial life. The small world A study published in The Planetary Science Journal suggests that Miranda, one of the moons of
A recent study on jellyfish-like creatures called hydras has unveiled an intriguing phenomenon: when overfed, these tiny freshwater organisms can develop transmissible tumors that can be passed on to their clone offspring. This discovery not only enhances our understanding of tumor development in hydras but
Researchers from Spain and Japan have discovered abundant live fungi, bacteria, and viruses at altitudes of 1,000 to 3,000 meters in Earth’s atmosphere. This groundbreaking study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved collecting air samples over Japan to investigate how