Previous problems appear to have been ironed out in craft’s essential landing equipmentGround tests designed to validate the deployment of the parachutes that will be used on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars lander next year have started well at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. ESA’s ExoMars 2020 mission consists of the UK-built Rosalind Franklin rover,...

People gathered across parts of Asia and the Middle East to watch a rare annular solar eclipse, also known as a ring of fire. The phenomenon, when the moon covers the centre of the sun, giving the appearance of a shining ring, was first visible above Saudi Arabia, travelling towards southern India, over northern Sri Lanka and ending up above the Pacific OceanRare ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse...

Over the holiday period the Guardian’s leader column examines the challenges of the future by fathoming out the present. Today we look at the changing shape of car cultureLewis Hamilton’s recent declaration of support for climate action attracted derision as well as plaudits. “I like fuel. Can I say that? I don’t like electric stuff,” was the deliberately provocative response from a...

Angela Saini’s book Superior showed me our misconceptions about race and science arise from a habit of the mindIt has been common for several years now to assert that science shows the concept of race has no biological basis, and that we must see it instead as a social construct. That case was argued, for example, by Kenan Malik in his 2008 book Strange Fruit, and it is presented, too, in Angela...

Attacks and scepticism are on the rise, even as leaps are made in fields from gene editing and AI to interplanetary explorationThe 2010s were the decade in which we were reminded that science is just a method, like the rhythm method. And just like the rhythm method, it can be more or less rigorously applied, sabotaged, overrated, underrated and ignored. If you don’t treat it with respect, you...

Researchers aim to recreate intense emotional experience astronauts reported on seeing Earth from space for the first timeThe spectacle of Earth suspended in space was so overwhelming for Edgar Mitchell that the Apollo 14 astronaut and sixth man on the moon wanted to grab politicians by the scruff of the neck and drag them into space to witness the view.Such drastic measures may not be necessary,...