(NORTHPORT, Ala.) — An Alabama high school student named NASA’s first Mars helicopter that will be deployed to the Red Planet later this summer. Ingenuity, the name submitted by Vaneera Rupani, was selected for the 4 pound (1.8 kilograms) solar-powered helicopter, NASA said in a statement on Wednesday. The name coined by the junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport was...

(BETHESDA, Md.) — Former NASA administrator James M. Beggs, who led the agency during the early years of the space shuttle program and resigned after the Challenger disaster killed seven astronauts in 1986, died Thursday at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. He was 94. Congestive heart failure is suspected to be the cause of his death, according to one of his sons, Charles Beggs. President...

(MADISON, Wis.) — A Chicago astronomer has sued the maker of American Girl dolls, alleging the Wisconsin company stole her likeness and name to create its astronaut doll. The federal trademark lawsuit filed in Madison this week by Lucianne Walkowicz asks American Girl and its parent company, Mattel, to stop selling the Luciana Vega doll, described as “an aspiring astronaut ready to...

In just a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has crossed borders and oceans, killing thousands, sickening millions, and forcing millions more to reckon with the economic and personal chaos of closures and lockdowns. Yet as the global infection count rises, the crisis has also given rise to acts of ingenuity. The pandemic has set off a global race for both an effective vaccine and for the...

There are countless ways the current coronavirus pandemic has reshaped efforts to tackle climate change and will continue to do so for years to come. One of the chief challenges and opportunities for politicians, policymakers and climate activists is the period of low oil prices that has come about as a result of COVID-19. For the first time in history, oil prices entered negative territory this...

Think of it as part public health work, part detective work

The planet had no way of knowing that an entire nation of 205 million people was waking up on April 22, 1970—the first Earth Day—planning to rise in its defense, but it nonetheless cooperated in the effort. The temperatures were generally mild and the skies generally clear in the East and West, and it was sunnier and warmer still through most of the South and Plains states. The...

(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk’s SpaceX will fly American astronauts to the International Space Station on May 27, according to National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator Jim Bridenstine, setting an official launch date for the mission. The launch, which Bridenstine announced in a tweet on Friday, will mark the first for NASA astronauts from American soil to the orbiting lab...

(KENSINGTON, Maryland) — A two-decade-long dry spell that has parched much of the western United States is turning into one of the deepest megadroughts in the region in more than 1,200 years, a new study found. And about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science. Scientists looked at a nine-state area...

(MOSCOW) — A U.S.-Russian space crew landed safely Friday in the steppes of Kazakhstan, greeted with extra precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic. Following a stint on the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan and Russian Oleg Skripochka touched down as scheduled at 11:16 a.m. (0516 GMT) Friday. Their Soyuz landing capsule landed under a striped...

Earlier this month, my friend Claire Arkin, 30, a non-profit worker in Berkeley, Cali., told me she’d been having oddly vivid and specific dreams. In one, she was getting dressed to attend a fancy gala, but instead of donning an evening gown and diamonds, she wrapped herself in toilet paper, “like some kind of f–ked…

(BOISE, Idaho) — They are two disasters that require opposite responses: To save lives and reduce the spread of COVID-19, people are being told to remain isolated. But in a wildfire, thousands of firefighters must work in close quarters for weeks at a time. Wildfires have already broken out in Texas and Florida, and agencies are scrambling to finish plans for a new approach. They are...

Jim Lovell was never supposed to fly Apollo 13 in the first place. Back in the days of NASA’s Gemini and Apollo programs, with a robust corps of astronauts competing for limited seats on limited spacecraft, the flight rotation followed a three-plus-three pattern. Once you had flown a mission, you would go to the end of the line, waiting to serve as a back-up crew member three missions...

As a penguin researcher working in some of the most remote regions of Antarctica, conservation biologist Alex Borowicz documents colonies on coastlines and islands that have rarely, if ever, been visited by other people. That doesn’t mean they are free from human impact. Walking through a beach teeming with newly hatched chicks on Snow Island, Borowicz spots a white plastic milk jug....

(MOSCOW) — A U.S.-Russian space crew blasted off Thursday to the International Space Station following a tight quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos’ Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner lifted off as scheduled at 1:05 p.m. (0805 GMT, 4:05 a.m. EDT) from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft is...

(Bloomberg) — There are four critical facets of pandemic prevention, according to Lee Hannah, senior scientist at Conservation International. Three of them make immediate sense against the backdrop of our current emergency: stockpile masks and respirators; have testing infrastructure ready; and ban the global wildlife trade, including the open animal markets where COVID-19 may have first...

This weekend a tiger at the Bronx Zoo tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans. But it’s a leap to worry if your household feline can get or transmit the coronavirus, says Karen Terio, chief of the Zoological Pathology Program at the University of Illinois’ College of Veterinary Medicine, which assisted in diagnosing the tiger. “A tiger is not a...

With millions of people across the U.S. and the world battling COVID-19 infections, many of them struggling to breathe, ventilators have become a top priority for the health-care workers trying desperately to keep patients alive. And those machines, which help patients breathe or breathe for them, are in startlingly short supply. For doctors, resorting to a ventilator is an extreme measure, used...

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — A supermoon rises in the sky this week, looking to be the biggest and brightest of the year. Not only will the moon be closer to Earth than usual, it will also be a full moon. Scientists call this cosmic combo a supermoon. The moon will be 221,855 miles (357,042 kilometers) away at its fullest Tuesday night, making it appear larger and more brilliant. NASA is...

Runaway exponential growth. Unprecedented economic impacts. Untold deaths and suffering, especially among the poor and vulnerable. All these superlatives are sadly apt descriptors for the COVID-19 crisis unfolding in front of our eyes. They also apply to climate change. But while the slowdown in activity due to COVID-19 has led to a temporary fall in China’s carbon dioxide emissions by up...