Artist's rendering of how large Gigantopithecus blacki may have been. In life, G. blacki would have spent most of its time on all fours. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
There's nothing small about Gigantopithecus blacki. The massive extinct animal likely rivaled a modern polar bear in size, weighing more than 1,000 pounds and standing nearly ten feet tall on its back legs.
The mystery around G. blacki is also super-sized. This largest of primates is known only from plentiful teeth and a fe ...read more
NASA is adding an instrument to the European Space Agency's ARIEL spacecraft.(Credit: ESA/STFC RAL Space/UCL/Europlanet-Science Office)
NASA announced last week that it will contribute to a European Space Agency mission scheduled to launch in 2028. The spacecraft, called ARIEL (for Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey), will be the first space mission dedicated to studying exoplanet atmospheres.
During its primary mission lasting some four years, ARIEL will stud ...read more
The Falcon 9 rocket taking off for the Starlink mission on November 11. (Credit: SpaceX/Flickr)
On November 11, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying another 60 Starlink satellites, which will eventually provide internet service worldwide. The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station made history by reusing a record number of rocket parts. But even with that feat in aerospace design, the launch wasn’t celebrated by everyone.
According to SpaceX’s plans, Starlink w ...read more
A new study outlined a possible method to search for a wormhole at the center of the Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole, like the one seen in this artist's concept, resides. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
If there was a wormhole in the center of our galaxy, how could we tell? Two physicists propose that carefully watching the motions of a star orbiting the Milky Way's supermassive black hole might help scientists start to check. The researchers published the idea in a recent paper&nb ...read more
