Tag: Science

Students write the entrance test for the 2025-26 academic year at Alva’s Kannada Medium School in March 2025. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT While the protests in New Delhi, the Centre relenting, and the petitions at the Supreme Court bent the arc of justice towards the lakhs of students who had suffered from leaked examination...

A view of the Rub al-Khali quarter of the desert in Saudi Arabia in 2007. | Photo Credit: Javierblas (CC BY-SA) Even in a desert, early humans sought more than water More than water alone guided humans in the ancient Arabian Peninsula. Scientists earlier believed human populations expanded across ‘Green Arabia’ wherever lakes formed. But...

An artist’s impression shows Gaia mapping the stars of the Milky Way. Photo: Reuters via European Space Agency The story so far: The third dataset released by the European Space Agency’s star-mapping Gaia probe, covering almost 1.8 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, has revealed an unexpected phenomena called ‘starquakes’, which are similar to...

A farmer walks on dry farmland in Shivamogga district, Karnataka, on September 16, 2026. | Photo Credit: S.K. Dinesh/File photo In the summer of 1997, one of the strongest El Niños of the 20th century took shape in the Pacific Ocean. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted a monsoon rainfall deficit of 8% below the...

If all goes to plan, India may see designs for the first privately built tokamak, a nuclear reactor that uses fusion to produce energy, firmed up in 2027. Bengaluru-based startup Pranos Fusion has built PRAGYA, a small doughnut shaped tokamak, to test plasma control and superconducting magnets. This is a gateway to building PRANIK, a...

Representational image. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto An ageing NASA telescope is barely clinging to space after a failed rescue effort left it tottering lower and lower. The U.S. Space Force predicts the Swift Observatory will come crashing down on or around Friday (October 30, 2026). Most of the 1 ½-ton telescope is expected to...

ISRO’s GSLV-F18 rocket carrying the second-generation navigation satellite NVS-03 lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on October 30, 2026. | Photo Credit: PTI India’s independent regional navigation satellite system NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) was restored to its minimum operational configuration of four satellites on Friday (October 30, 2026)...

ISRO’s GSLV-F18 rocket carrying the second-generation navigation satellite NVS-03 lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, Friday, October 30. Photo: X/@nithinnabin Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (October 31, 2026) congratulated scientists and engineers at ISRO on the successful launch of GSLV-F18 carrying NVS-03 and said the mission marks an...

ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan with other officials during a press conference after the launch of a GSLV rocket carrying second-generation navigation satellite NVS-03 into orbit, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on Saturday (October 31, 2026). | Photo Credit: PTI ISRO chief V. Narayanan on Saturday (October 31, 2026) said that...

For NavIC’s core services to function effectively, at least four satellites are theoretically required. However, information shared by the Indian government indicates that only three of the constellation’s 11 satellites are currently capable of performing their primary functions. These include first-generation satellites IRNSS-1B and IRNSS-1I, along with second-generation satellite NVS-01. IRNSS-1B has already exceeded its...