technical updates

About a month has passed since the first launch of SpaceX's "Version 3" Starship rocket, and the spaceflight company has already begun testing on its next such vehicle. SpaceX recently transported Ship 40, the upper stage in line to launch Starship's upcoming Flight 13 demonstration mission, to the Massey test site at its facilities in Starbase , Texas. Secured at its base, Starship performed a full-duration burn of one of its central Raptor 3 engines that lasted about 15 seconds. The test, called a static fire, is meant to confirm that the spacecraft's engines are in working order ahead of an actual launch. SpaceX posted a video of the test on X today (June 26). The Ship upper stage is equipped with six Raptor 3 engines — three sea-level engines, and three configured for optimized flight in the vacuum of space. The vehicle uses all six during ascent, but only a single se...

If you've been looking for a good time to take the leap into the drone world, the 30% discount on this sub-250 g beginner drone might be enough to tempt you. Before the release of the DJI Neo 2, we ranked the DJI Neo as the best DJI drone for simplicity. Our drone expert, James Abbott, gave it four out of five stars in his hands-on DJI Neo review , noting that not only is it a lot of fun to operate, but it also makes drone flight as simple or as complicated as you would like, thanks to the multiple control options. Get the DJI Neo drone on sale for one more day at Amazon for $139 . Because the DJI Neo is sub-250g, you don't have to worry about registering it under the current drone regulations . At this price, you can't go wrong, even if you're a seasoned drone pilot looking for a backup or just something that tracks you and your adventures autonomously. Save $60 on this sub-250 ...

What is rarer than discovering a "super-puff" planet with densities much (much) lower than those of the solar system gas giants? Discovering two orbiting the same star. That is exactly what astronomers have done, finding two extrasolar planets, or exoplanets , that are super-puff siblings orbiting the same star. Both planets, designated TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c, have densities lower than that of cotton candy, making them the lightest exoplanets ever seen. "Only a handful of these super-puffy planets are known, and it is even rarer to find two in the same system," team leader George Dransfield of Oxford University said in a statement. "Their extremely low densities make them fascinating targets for understanding how planetary systems form and evolve." The two planets orbit a dwarf star called TOI-791, which is located around 1,110 light-years from Earth. Both plane...

DC's new "Supergirl" may or may not turn out to be a classic of the comic-book genre. It may or may not be a smash hit in theaters. But whatever else happens when Kara Zor-El flies into the unpredictable headwinds of the worldwide box office, one thing the new movie has got 100% right is its promo poster. Let's take a look at its components. The bright, primary-colored House of El logo in the background is so bold and unmistakable that there's no need to spell out that this is a Super movie. At the same time, having that famous shield spray-painted on a wall is elegant shorthand for "Looking for overgrown boy scout Clark Kent? Then move along". Meanwhile, lead actor Milly Alcock's "don't care" pose — not to mention the overcoat, sunglasses, and retro headphones — screams attitude. And by the time you get to that "Truth. Justice. Whatever...

An intense demolition derby of at least six galaxies smashing into one another has been found lurking in the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope. This merger is also expected to fuel the growth of a supermassive black hole and trigger the formation of what will eventually become one of the most massive galaxies in the cosmos. "What makes this special is that we can follow both the build-up of a giant galaxy and the growth of the black hole at its center," Huub Röttgering, an astronomer at the Netherlands' Leiden Observatory, said in a statement . The discovery came after a tip-off from radio astronomers who had noticed emissions that seemed to be coming from an undiscovered active black hole. When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) looked closer, it found a surprise. "We didn't find a single galaxy, but an entire complex of at least six galaxies," sai...

NASA's plan to return astronauts to the moon and bolster a rapidly growing commercial space industry is facing an infrastructure obstacle. A new report from NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) warns that launch facilities at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia are approaching capacity as demand accelerates across the agency and the private sector. Support infrastructure — such as roads, electricity, and gas and fuel pipelines that laid the foundation for KSC's network of launch pads built to support the Apollo program in the 1960s — are being increasingly stretched by the demands of NASA's Artemis missions , SpaceX, Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance (ULA) and other users. "Based on current launch projections, Kennedy and Wallops are expected to operate near capacity in the 2028 to 2029 time frame," states the repor...