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NASA has a provided a tantalizing teaser photo ahead of the highly-anticipated release next week of the first deep-space images from the James Webb Telescope – an instrument so powerful it can peer back into the origins of the Universe. An engineering test image. (NASA, CSA, and FGS team) The US$10 billion observatory – launched in December last year and now orbiting the Sun a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth – can look where no telescope has looked before thanks to its enormous primary mirror and instruments that focus on infrared, allowing it to peer through dust...

The nation argued for five years over the infamous “Steele dossier,” the document on which the Federal Bureau of Investigation relied to investigate Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. It should have been called the Clinton dossier. Special counsel John Durham this week obtained an indictment of Igor Danchenko, a Russian who provided information for the dossier. ---SNIP--- Never forget the original claim. According to the FBI, Democrats and the media, Mr. Trump harbored secret and nefarious ties with Russia. We knew that because—as Mother Jones explained in a 2016 article that became the reigning story line— Christopher Steele was a “credible...

NASA's newest planet-hunting telescope is officially at work. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is designed to hunt for alien worlds around stars not too far from the sun, began gathering science data Wednesday (July 25), members of the instrument team announced yesterday (July 27). TESS will send that initial data to Earth in August, with new observations arriving every 13.5 days after that, mission team members said in a statement. "I'm thrilled that our planet hunter is ready to start combing the backyard of our solar system for new worlds," Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics division, said...

Astrophysicists have developed a new method for calculating the effect of Rayleigh scattering on photons, potentially allowing researchers to better understand the formation of the Universe. The CMB is the oldest light in the universe, which originated when electrons combined with protons to form the first atoms. These primordial atoms were also the first to Rayleigh scatter light. UBC theoretical cosmology graduate student Elham Alipour, UBC physicist Kris Sigurdson and Ohio State University astrophysicist Christopher Hirata probed the effect of Rayleigh scattering -- the process that makes the sky appear blue when the Sun's photons are scattered by molecules...

EDWARDS AFB - The Airborne Laser program reached a major developmental milestone earlier this month with the first-ever test firing of the system's high-energy laser, the centerpiece of the weapons system. The Nov. 10 ground test at the program's Edwards Air Force Base test site - dubbed "First Light" - was the first time all six modules that make up the powerful laser were connected and successfully fired as a single unit. "This is a wonderful moment for the Missile Defense Agency and the proponents of a ballistic missile defense system around the world," said Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, ABL program...