Science News Roundup: Boeing's Aurora to build Virgin Galactic spaceship carrier plane; Scientists at CERN observe three "exotic" particles for the first time and more

Virgin Galactic, the space tourism firm founded by billionaire businessman Richard Branson, has been building a more durable, mass-producable successor to its flagship SpaceShipTwo spaceplane, which drops from the underbelly of a carrier plane before rocketing to the edge of space for a few minutes. Scientists at CERN observe three "exotic" particles for first time Scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have discovered three subatomic particles never seen before as they work to unlock the building blocks of the universe, the European nuclear research centre CERN said on Tuesday.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Boeing's Aurora to build Virgin Galactic spaceship carrier plane

Virgin Galactic inked an agreement with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to build the company's new twin-fuselage carrier plane that will ferry its next-generation spaceship toward space, the company announced on Wednesday. Virgin Galactic, the space tourism firm founded by billionaire businessman Richard Branson, has been building a more durable, mass-producible successor to its flagship SpaceShipTwo spaceplane, which drops from the underbelly of a carrier plane before rocketing to the edge of space for a few minutes.

Scientists at CERN observe three "exotic" particles for the first time

Scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have discovered three subatomic particles never seen before as they work to unlock the building blocks of the universe, the European nuclear research center CERN said on Tuesday. The 27-kilometre-long (16.8-mile) LHC at CERN is the machine that found the Higgs boson particle, which along with its linked energy field is thought to be vital to the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Uterus transplants allow successful pregnancies in U.S. women-study

More than half of U.S. women who received a uterus through a transplant went on to have successful pregnancies, a new study shows. Between 2016 and 2021, 33 women received uterus transplants in the United States and so far 19 of them, or 58%, have delivered a total of 21 babies, researchers reported on Wednesday in JAMA Surgery.

(With inputs from agencies.)