The Hubble Space Telescope has gone into “safe mode” for the third time in a week. The ageing, floating observatory – which was launched in 1990, with an expected lifespan of 15 years, and was last serviced by the space shuttle in 2009 – occasionally needs to be fixed from the ground when it runs into issues. This time, Nasa said it had entered safe mode because of an “ongoing gyroscope issue”. The space agency is “working to resume science operations”, it said. The current problems had begun 23 November, it said, and it is still not online. The telescope had been hit with the same issue twice in the days before, when it was also sent into safe mode – but came back online. Nasa said Hubble was otherwise in good health, and that its instruments were stable. It is able to operate with just one working gyroscope, but is less efficient when it does. When the spacecraft was serviced on the fifth and final visit from the space shuttle, in 2009, astronauts installed six new gyroscopes on Hubble. Three of those are still in operation, including the one currently having issues. The gyroscopes are used to aim the telescope around space. They measure Hubble’s turning and help it work out where it is pointing, so that it can be moved around in space. Nasa says that it believes Hubble will continue working, alongside other telescopes such as Webb, “throughout this decade and possibly into the next”. When it is no longer operational, Hubble will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, though that is not expected to happen until the mid to late 2030s at the earliest. It is expected to have a propulsion system attached to it which will either push it down for a controlled fall into the Pacific Ocean or carry it further up into a higher orbit. Read More Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away SpaceX hints next Starship launch attempt could be soon Elon Musk believes OpenAI may have made ‘dangerous’ discovery

There's a chance your video calls will be used to train artificial intelligence. Zoom updated

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander only touched down on the Moon a month ago, but already it's made some major contributions to science. The spacecraft arrived on the satellite's unexplored south pole on 23 August, securing India's place as the first country to achieve this ambitious feat. Its rover, named Pragyan (or "wisdom" in Sanskrit) then embarked on an exploration of the rocky terrain, equipped with two instruments for conducting chemical experiments. And now, India's space agency, the ISRO, has published the ground-breaking data collected by the bold robot. Pragyan's findings offered a new, detailed insight into what makes up the lunar soil. And whilst scientists were unsurprised by the presence of iron, titanium, aluminium and calcium in the rocks, they were stunned to note a much higher concentration of sulphur than expected. The discovery is significant for a number of reasons. Most significantly, perhaps, because the sulphur could be used to help create a human base on the Moon. As Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, a planetary scientist, pointed out in a piece for Science Alert: "Astronauts and robots could travel from the south pole base to collect, process, store and use naturally occurring materials like sulfur on the Moon – a concept called in-situ resource utilization. "In-situ resource utilization means fewer trips back to Earth to get supplies and more time and energy spent exploring. Using sulfur as a resource, astronauts could build solar cells and batteries that use sulfur, mix up sulfur-based fertilizer and make sulfur-based concrete for construction." Gillis-Davis went on to explain that sulfur-based concrete has a number of advantages over the more common variety used in building, pointing out that it "hardens and becomes strong within hours rather than weeks, and it's more resistant to wear". "It also doesn't require water in the mixture, so astronauts could save their valuable water for drinking, crafting breathable oxygen and making rocket fuel," he added. The presence of sulphur near the Moon's south pole also suggests that highland soils at the lunar poles could have very different compositions to highland soils at the lunar equatorial regions. This would have key implications for our understanding of how the Moon works as a geological system, given that sulfur mainly comes from volcanic activity. Still, there's plenty of work to be done. And while this is all just one small step in Chandrayaan-3's mission, it could mean a great leap in how we view our dear celestial companion. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2023--

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 25, 2023--

(Adds additional reporting credit) By Gloria Dickie -The world's largest iceberg is on the move for the first time in

To learn more about the game's plans for upcoming year, players can tune in to the 'Dead by Daylight' 7th Anniversary stream on May 23 at 1:30 pm EST

YouTuber Danny O'Dwyer has rescued old video game tapes from landfill and told fans how he has unearthed never-seen-before gems from the gaming world.

Threads, Instagram’s attempt to take over from Twitter, has finally arrived. The app is now available in more than 100 countries – though there are some notable exceptions – and can be downloaded and started up relatively easily. Here’s how to get started with the app, from downloading it to customising it to be exactly how you want it. Download the app Threads is now out for both iOS and Android, and downloading them should be straightforward. Its full names “Threads, an Instagram app” and it is readily available on both platform’s stores. You can find the App Store listing for iPhone here, and the Play Store listing for Android phones here. You can of course also search for the word “Threads”, though other apps might appear. There is some chance that clicking through to those listings might show that the app is not available. If so, that’s probably because it’s not available in your country; the app has not yet been launched in the EU, apparently because of data protection concerns related to the way that data will be passed between apps. Meta has not yet announced when people in those countries will be able to get the app. Sign in and set up Meta has built Threads to integrate with Instagram, and users can sign in with their existing accounts from that service. Opening up the app should show a user’s existing Instagram account, alongside the option to choose a new one, and clicking that begins the process of getting started. From there, users can customise their profile for Threads, choosing a name and adding a bio, or importing it from Instagram. The app will then ask about privacy settings and ask whether you want to follow accounts from Instagram, before opening up and getting started. Users might want to head into the settings to add any extra tweaks, such as blocking specific people or certain words. Other than that, the design is relatively straightforward – and should be very familiar to people who have used Instagram and Twitter already, since it is in essence a combination of the two. Users can make new posts by clicking in the bar at the bottom, or interact with existing ones by using the buttons underneath a post.

Here are the best instances from the various streams of Kai Cenat's visit to Tokyo, Japan

Don't even think of introducing Claes Bang at an awards show until you read this.