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Science News Roundup: Fireflies threatened globally; OneWeb launches 34 satellites and more – Devdiscourse


Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Latest solar probe to get first close up of the sun’s polar regions

A new spacecraft built jointly by U.S. and European space agencies is ready for a blazing journey to the sun to capture an unprecedented view of its two poles, an angle that could help researchers understand how the star’s vast bubble of magnetic energy affects Earth. The Solar Orbiter spacecraft will lift off from a Florida launch pad on Sunday at 11:03 p.m. (0400 GMT Monday) and autonomously unfold an array of solar panels and antennas before carrying on toward the sun for a 10-year mission mapping its polar regions.

The bitter end: Last woolly mammoths plagued by genetic defects

The world’s last woolly mammoths, sequestered on an Arctic Ocean island outpost, suffered from serious genetic defects caused by generations of inbreeding that may have hampered traits such as sense of smell and male fertility in the doomed population. Scientists said on Friday that the genome of one of the last mammoths from Wrangel Island off Siberia’s coast showed that the population was riddled with deleterious mutations. They resurrected genes from this mammoth in the laboratory to find clues about the demise of this illustrious Ice Age species.

Boeing’s botched Starliner test flirted with ‘catastrophic’ failure: NASA panel

Boeing narrowly missed a “catastrophic failure” during its December flight test of an unmanned space taxi that was cut short by an unrelated problem, a NASA safety review panel said Thursday, recommending that the agency examine Boeing’s software verification process before letting it fly humans to space. The newly revealed software bug, which Boeing said was fixed while the CST-100 Starliner was still in orbit, could have “led to erroneous thruster firings” that could have resulted in “a catastrophic spacecraft failure,” panel member Paul Hill said.

OneWeb launches 34 satellites from Kazakh cosmodrome in global internet push

The UK firm OneWeb launched 34 satellites from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Friday as part of its effort to provide global high-speed internet access using satellite communications by 2021. The Russian Soyuz rocket left Baikonur at 0242 local time (2142 GMT on Thursday), the second OneWeb launch out of 21 planned. OneWeb launched six satellites from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, in February 2019.

Fireflies threatened globally, with light pollution a glaring problem

Fireflies are under threat globally, with familiar hazards such as habitat loss and pesticides compounded by another peril: humankind’s ubiquitous nighttime artificial light that plays havoc with their balletic nocturnal courtship, scientists said. In the most comprehensive worldwide assessment to date of dangers facing these flying beetles, researchers concluded that some of the 2,000-plus firefly species may face extinction threats while others are doing just fine.

(With inputs from agencies.)

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