Science News Roundup: Putin bestows award for courage on U.S. astronaut who survived rocket failure; NASA boss to tour SpaceX factory after feud over spaceship delays


Reuters | Updated: 10-10-2019 19:19 IST | Created: 10-10-2019 18:29 IST
Science News Roundup: Putin bestows award for courage on U.S. astronaut who survived rocket failure; NASA boss to tour SpaceX factory after feud over spaceship delays
Representative image Image Credit: ANI

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Putin bestows award for courage on U.S. astronaut who survived rocket failure

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday bestowed a prestigious state award for courage on Nick Hague, the U.S. astronaut who survived a botched space launch last year. A Russian Soyuz rocket bound for the International Space Station malfunctioned two minutes after liftoff on Oct. 11, 2018, forcing its two-man crew of Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin to make an emergency landing.

Nobel prize winner laments lack of money for young physicists

Swiss scientist Michel Mayor, who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics, said on Wednesday he was concerned about how hard is it for young physicists to make a living from their science work. "For young people doing science it is always a problem to find a permanent position, and some of them are extremely good," Mayor said in an interview with Reuters Television at an event near Madrid.

Germany should aim to be a leader in hydrogen technology: minister

Germany should aim to be a leader in technologies needed to make and utilize hydrogen, which offers a green alternative to fossil fuels in the shift toward a low carbon economy, the economy minister said on Wednesday. The government has been pushing renewables and other technologies to help cut Germany's carbon emissions by 55% of their 1990 level by 2030 and by 80% to 95% by 2050. But it is already set to miss a target of a 40% cut in emissions by 2020.

Ten years after 'suicide' mission, NASA thirsts for lunar water

A decade after NASA sent a rocket crashing into the moon's south pole, spewing a plume of debris that revealed vast reserves of ice beneath the barren lunar surface, the space agency is racing to pick up where its little-remembered project left off. The so-called LCROSS mission was hastily carried out 10 years ago Wednesday in a complex orbital dance of two "suicide" spacecraft and one mapping satellite. It proved a milestone in the discovery of a natural lunar resource that could be key to NASA's plans for renewed human exploration of the moon and ultimately visits to Mars and beyond.

NASA boss to tour SpaceX factory after feud over spaceship delays

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk opened up his private rocket factory to the top official of NASA on Thursday for a tour and progress report on the company's long-delayed Crew Dragon astronaut capsule. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is paying commercial launch contractors SpaceX and Boeing Co $6.8 billion to build rocket-and-capsule systems to return astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time since America's space shuttle program ended in 2011.

Battery pioneers who made mobile revolution possible win Nobel chemistry prize

Three scientists have won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for putting power in peoples pockets by developing rechargeable lithium-ion batteries which made the global information technology, mobile and fossil-fuel free revolutions possible. American John Goodenough, at 97, became the oldest winner of a Nobel prize and shares the 9 million Swedish crown ($906,000 award equally with Stanley Whittingham from Britain and Akira Yoshino of Japan, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Committee said on Wednesday.

Saturn is the solar system's 'moon king,' with 20 more spotted

Saturn is now being recognized as the "moon king" of our solar system, with astronomers spotting 20 more of them orbiting the giant ringed planet, bringing its total count to 82 - three more than Jupiter. The newly identified small moons, ranging from about 2 to 4 miles (3 to 6 km) in diameter, were detected using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii by a research team led by astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington.

Science of far-away planets and infant universe wins Nobel prize

Canadian-American cosmologist James Peebles and Swiss scientists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics on Tuesday for revealing the wonder of the evolution of the universe and discovering planets orbiting distant suns. Peebles, of Princeton University in the United States, was awarded half of the 9-million-Swedish-crown ($910,000) prize while Mayor and Queloz, from Switzerland's University of Geneva and Britain's Cambridge University, shared the rest.

Fossils of 'shark-toothed' carnivorous dinosaur found in Thailand

Fossils of a large carnivorous dinosaur that was a top predator about 115 million years ago have been unearthed in Thailand -- a brute that was among the early members of an impressive group of flesh-ripping dinosaurs known for their shark-like teeth. Scientists on Wednesday said the dinosaur, named Siamraptor suwati, was more than 26-foot-long (9 meters) long and weighed at least 3.5 tons. Siamraptor, the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever discovered in Thailand, lived during the Cretaceous Period in an environment centered on a meandering river system and preyed on plant-eating dinosaurs, the researchers said.

Also Read: Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 awarded to Peebles, Michel Mayor and Queloz

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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