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"Last year, NASA’s advanced propulsion research wing made headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum. NASA Eagleworks made the announcement quite unassumingly via NASASpaceFlight.com. There’s also a major discussion going on about the engine and the physics that drives it at the site’s forum." ... "The NASASpaceflight.com group has given consideration to whether the experimental measurements of thrust force were the result of an artifact. Despite considerable effort within the NASASpaceflight.com...

Interactive: What Is Space? Imagine the fabric of space-time peeled back layer by layer. By: Thomas Lin April 30, 2015 In 1915, Albert Einstein’s field equations of gravitation revolutionized our understanding of space, time and gravity. Better known as general relativity, Einstein’s theory defined gravity as curves in the geometry of space-time, overturning Isaac Newton’s classic theory and correctly predicting the existence of black holes and gravity’s ability to bend light. But a century later, the fundamental nature of space-time remains shrouded in mystery: Where does its structure come from? What do space-time and gravity look like in the subatomic...

Hannes Hummel for Quanta MagazineTensor networks could connect space-time froth to quantum information. Next in the series Interactive: What Is Space? Chapter 2: Network Tapestry How Quantum Pairs Stitch Space-Time New tools may reveal how quantum information builds the structure of space. By: Jennifer OuelletteApril 28, 2015 Comments (8) Brian Swingle was a graduate student studying the physics of matter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he decided to take a few classes in string theory to round out his education — “because, why not?” he recalled — although he initially paid little heed to the concepts he...

The Australian discovery of a strange exoplanet orbiting a small cool star 500 light years away is challenging ideas about how planets form. "We have found a small star, with a giant planet the size of Jupiter, orbiting very closely," said researcher George Zhou from the Research School of Astrophysics and Astronomy. "It must have formed further out and migrated in, but our theories can't explain how this happened." In the past two decades more than 1,800 extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) have been discovered outside our solar system orbiting around other stars. The host star of the latest exoplanet, HATS-6,...

Cargo ship spinning out of control, will re-enter atmosphere CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The crew of the International Space Station says a Russian supply ship that went into an uncontrollable spin after launch has been declared a total loss. American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko told The Associated Press on Wednesday that flight controllers have given up trying to command the cargo carrier. The unmanned vessel began tumbling shortly after its launch Tuesday from Kazakhstan. Kelly says the vehicle will fall out of orbit and re-enter the atmosphere sometime soon. He's not sure exactly when. The cargo...

Flight controllers are unable to receive data from unmanned Progress M-27M – and the only way to regain control would be an ultra-risky ‘manual stablilisation’ carried out by the ISS crew. But a Russian space program analyst said: “Trying to stabilise it manually would be extremely risky. You could destroy the station and kill the crew.” The spacecraft is carrying more than 6,000lb of food, fuel and supplies for the ISS crew – which is currently home to Russian and American astronauts. The M-27M was launched via a standard Soyuz rocket at 8.09 a.m. GMT today (1.09 p.m. local time...

The EmDrive, an experimental propulsion device, may be producing a warp field. According to posts on the NASA Space Flight forum, when lasers were fired into the EmDrive resonance chamber, it was found that some of the beams were travelling faster than the speed of light. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)If this is true, then it would mean that the EmDrive is producing a warp field or bubble. A forum post says that "this signature (the interference pattern) on the EmDrive looks just like what a warp bubble looks like. And the math behind the warp bubble apparently matches the interference pattern found in...

Six years from now a machine that makes oxygen will be in operation on Mars. The small oxygen device will be sent to the Red Planet with the NASA Mars 2020 mission. "We're going to build a small instrument that will generate oxygen on Mars. It will be the prototype of a much larger 'factory' that will provide astronauts with oxygen at some point in the future," says Morten Bo Madsen, the head of the Mars group at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. The project is known at NASA as MOXIE (Mars OXygen In Situ resource...

Every now and then, astronomers spy a runaway star, one that’s hurling itself across its galaxy at breakneck speeds. But stars aren’t the only things that occasionally go beserker in the cosmic void: Galaxies themselves will sometimes depart home, never to return. In fact, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have now spotted 11 renegade galaxies, screaming across intergalactic space at up to 6 million miles per hour. Each of these star blobs has surpassed escape velocity, meaning that it’s broken the gravitational bonds holding it in its cosmic neighborhood. The discovery of these lonely exiles appears this...

Wormholes Untangle a Black Hole Paradox A bold new idea aims to link two famously discordant descriptions of nature. In doing so, it may also reveal how space-time owes its existence to the spooky connections of quantum information. By: K.C. ColeApril 24, 2015 Comments (19) One hundred years after Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity, physicists are still stuck with perhaps the biggest incompatibility problem in the universe. The smoothly warped space-time landscape that Einstein described is like a painting by Salvador Dalí — seamless, unbroken, geometric. But the quantum particles that occupy this space are more like...

The Clintons took in more than $140M in 2013 but spent just $9M on direct aid.....the bulk spent on travel, salaries and bonuses, with fat payouts going to family and friends. On 2013 tax forms, most recent available, they claim $30 million on payroll/employee benefits; $8.7 million in rent/office expenses; $9.2 million on “conferences, conventions and meetings”; $8 million on fund-raising; and nearly $8.5 million on travel. Significantly, none of the Clintons are listed on the payroll, except for first-class flights paid for by the Foundation. The tax-exempt came under fire following reports that then-Secy of State Hillary Clinton allowed...

"The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO) are investigating an experimental propulsion system on the X-37B on Mission 4," Capt. Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesman, told Space.com via email. "AFRCO will also host a number of advance materials onboard the X-37B for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to study the durability of various materials in the space environment," Hoyler added ... The Air Force owns two X-37B space planes, both of which were built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. The solar-powered spacecraft are about...

The aircraft that air-launches the Pegasus rocket has been repainted with new livery to mark the recent corporate merge that formed Orbital ATK. The L-1011 jet, named Stargazer, carries the light-class Pegasus launchers to an altitude of 39,000 feet and releases the booster to fire into space. Pegasus has flown 42 times and the 32 using the XL version. The rocket weighs 51,000 pounds, stretches 55 feet long and is comprised of three solid-fueled stages for boosting small satellites into orbit. Launches have occurred from California, Virginia, Florida, the Canary Islands and the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Stargazer...

  In 2014 China made a round trip to the moon with robotic explorers. The Chinese intend to launch a mission to the moon that will return samples back to Earth. They have outlined their ambitious plans for outer space here. IEEE/Spectrum calls China the "Next Space Superpower."“The Chinese have said repeatedly that they are not going to go into space, land on the moon, look around, say, Been there, done that,’ and consider themselves done,” says Johnson-Freese. “They’re going to do stepping-stone infrastructure, and in those terms their space station makes sense.” Where else might Chinese astronauts go? Their...

A supervoid has been discovered in the universe which is too big to fit into current models Astronomers have discovered a curious empty section of space which is missing around 10,000 galaxies. The ‘supervoid’, which is 1.8 billion light-years across, is the largest known structure ever discovered in the universe but scientists are baffled about what it is and why it is so barren. It sits in a region of space which is much colder than other parts of the universe and although it is not a vacuum, it seems to have around 20 per cent less matter than other...

Most rocket boosters either burn up in the atmosphere or ­– as NASA’s do – simply fall into the ocean. With cheaper spaceflight the ultimate goal, SpaceX is the first space organization to attempt a rocket landing on a floating base, or, as the company calls it, an “autonomous spaceport drone ship.” Still, it begs the question- why attempt the landing at sea? According to American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aerospace Engineer Paul Huter, it’s simply a matter of convenience. “The rocket is launching out over the Atlantic ocean, so the easiest place to land it would be straight...

Dr. Danielle N. Lee, who writes for the Scientific American blog network and calls herself "the Urban Scientist," believes that the push to visit Mars and eventually inhabit it is "white colonialism." Dr. Lee expressed her concerns in both the Scientific American blog and on Twitter. Writing in Scientific American in an article titled, "When discussing Humanity’s next move to space, the language we use matters," Dr. Lee discusses Elon Musk's push to inhabit Mars some day. She is very critical of Musk, saying that his language is not inclusive enough to either women and minorities. "Diversity, Inclusion, Access and...

The countdown is on! This could be a very historic mission with the return of the booster to a landing pad in the ocean.

How hard can it be to send a rocket into space?...What we want to know is how big of a rocket can we make? We're going to start out with a simple toy like this, but then we're going to ramp that up to the biggest and nastiest thing we can whip up in three weeks. After all, it's only rocket science.

Despite a declaration from President Barack Obama that the moon is not a planned destination for American astronauts, senior NASA engineers have quietly begun reconsidering using it as a staging point for an eventual mission to Mars.William Gerstenmaier, the chief of human exploration for NASA, does not see the president's plan of a direct, 900-day mission to the red planet as achievable. Instead, Gerstenmaier believes large amounts of ice at the lunar poles may provide an important reservoir of oxygen and hydrogen fuel to propel rockets and spaceships across the 40 million miles of space to Mars."If propellant was available...