Reuters Science News Summary

The United Launch Alliance-owned rocket, standing roughly 23 stories tall, blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida around 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), 12 days after a previous launch attempt was scrubbed at the last minute due to a technical glitch. Explainer-Total solar eclipse 2024: When is it and what to expect? The moon will blot out the sun for millions of people in North America along a path crossing from Mexico into the United States and then Canada in a total solar eclipse occurring on Monday, April 8.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Delta rockets retired with launch of US reconnaissance satellite

The U.S. Space Force and a Boeing-Lockheed joint venture sent a secret reconnaissance payload to orbit on Tuesday atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket, the last flight of a workhorse launch vehicle brand that has logged nearly 400 missions dating back to 1960. The United Launch Alliance-owned rocket, standing roughly 23 stories tall, blasted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida around 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), 12 days after a previous launch attempt was scrubbed at the last minute due to a technical glitch.

Explainer-Total solar eclipse 2024: When is it and what to expect?

The moon will blot out the sun for millions of people in North America along a path crossing from Mexico into the United States and then Canada in a total solar eclipse occurring on Monday, April 8. Here is an explanation of the solar eclipse, where it will be visible and what to expect.

UK Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs dies aged 94

Physicist Peter Higgs, whose theory of an undetected particle in the universe changed science and was vindicated by a Nobel prize-winning discovery half a century later, has died aged 94, the University of Edinburgh said on Tuesday. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the CERN research centre near Geneva was widely hailed as the biggest advance in knowledge about the cosmos for over 30 years, and pointed physics towards ideas that were once science fiction.

Total solar eclipse: North Americans celebrate with cheers, music and matrimony

Throngs of skywatchers across North America gazed upward at a blackened sun in the midday dusk on Monday, celebrating with cheers, music and matrimony the first total solar eclipse to darken the continent in seven years. From a Mexican beach resort close to where the eclipse made landfall to the banks of the Ohio River and farther north beyond the roaring cascades of Niagara Falls at the U.S.-Canadian border, spellbound crowds reacted to the sight of "totality" with jaw-dropping expressions of awe and joy.

SpaceX launches South Korea's second spy satellite amid race with North

South Korea's defence ministry said on Monday the country's second homegrown spy satellite had entered orbit after its launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch, which comes after Seoul's first spy satellite was put into orbit from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base in December, was livestreamed on social media platforms X and YouTube.

Launch of Russia's Angara rocket set for Wednesday, Roscosmos says

The launch of the Angara A5 space rocket from Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome will take place on Wednesday, the state space agency Roscosmos said on the Telegram messaging app, after the original launch was aborted on Tuesday due to a technical malfunction.

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