Photo: Mercury, center left, passes between Earth and the sun, Monday, Nov. 11, 2019, as seen from Lutherville-Timonium. Mini Mercury skipped across the vast, glaring face of the sun Monday in a rare celestial transit. Stargazers used solar-filtered binoculars and telescopes to spot Mercury — a tiny black dot — as it passed directly between Earth and the sun on ...

The U.S. space agency NASA is planning to attach an instrument to a European spacecraft that will explore the exoplanets’ clouds for the first time. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Friday that the instrument called Contribution to ARIEL Spectroscopy of Exoplanets, or CASE, will add scientific capabilities to the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (ARIEL) mission. The ARIEL spacecraft, developed ...

Facebook says it is deleting the name of the person who has been identified in conservative circles as the whistleblower who triggered a congressional impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s actions. The company said Friday that mention of the potential whistleblower’s name violates Facebook’s “coordinating harm policy,” which prohibits material that could identify a “witness, informant, or activist.” Facebook says ...

Chinese space engineers are tackling the key technologies needed to explore a near-Earth asteroid and a main-belt comet with one space probe. The proposed mission is to send a probe around an asteroid named 2016HO3 and then land on it to collect samples, Huang Jiangchuan, a researcher from the China Academy of Space Technology, recently told the first China Space ...

China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 on the moon surface. Photo: Collected China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 has driven 318.62 meters on the far side of the moon to conduct scientific exploration of the virgin territory. Both the lander and the rover of the Chang’e-4 probe have ended their work for the 11th lunar day, and switched to dormant mode for the lunar ...

As of Sunday, drivers in the Australian State of New South Wales (NSW) can use a Digital Driver’s Licence (DDL) on their smartphone for proof of identity, proof of age and at roadside police stops. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello announced the statewide rollout as a result of successful trials in a number of ...

Rayhan Ahmed Topader: The major players in the international community have accepted the outcome of January’s elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the name of stability. In doing so, they have failed the Congolese people. Moreover, they have fallen short of the aspirations of the UN’s sustainable development goals, which call for accountable and inclusive institutions. ...