Katherine Johnson performed what might have been the most important job of her life backwards—because backwards was exactly the right way to do it. The job was figuring out how to ensure that John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, would splash down in the Atlantic as close as possible to the recovery […]

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — NASA’s newest Mars lander has confirmed that quakes and even aftershocks are regularly jolting the red planet. Scientists reported Monday that the seismometer from the InSight spacecraft has detected scores of marsquakes. A series of research papers focus on the 174 marsquakes noted through last September. Twenty-four were relatively strong — […]

(HAMPTON, Va.) — NASA says Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who worked on NASA’s early space missions and was portrayed in the film Hidden Figures, about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. In a Monday morning tweet, the space agency said it celebrates her 101 years of life and her legacy of excellence and breaking […]

(NEW YORK) — Larry Tesler, the Silicon Valley pioneer who created the now-ubiquitous computer concepts such as “cut,” “copy” and “paste,” has died. He was 74. He made using computers easier for generations as a proponent and pioneer of what he called “modeless editing.” That meant a user wouldn’t have to use a keyboard to […]

How rapidly is the universe expanding? Since Edwin Hubble first discovered in 1929 that galaxies are getting farther apart over time, allowing scientists to trace the evolution of the universe back to an initial Big Bang, astronomers have struggled to measure the exact rate of this expansion. In particular, astronomers want to determine a number […]

For decades, NASA has been the kid politely asking for a raise in its allowance. Time was NASA’s pocket money was huge. Go back 54 years, to 1966, and the space agency was getting $5.9 billion a year—which would be a tidy $47 billion in 2020 dollars. That represented 4.1% of America’s annual household budget. […]

(WAUCHULA, Fla.) — A orangutan named Sandra, who was granted legal personhood by a judge in Argentina and later found a new home in Florida, celebrated her 34th birthday on Valentine’s Day with a special new primate friend. Patti Ragan, director of the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida, says Sandra “has adjusted beautifully […]

The long list of big companies backing a carbon tax as a solution to climate change grew this week with financial giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. endorsing a legislative plan billed as a centrist approach to reducing emissions. The announcement comes as the Climate Leadership Council (CLC), the organization behind the proposal, which was […]