Bringing the Universe to Earth

For much of last year the physics world lived with the possibility that a group of scientists had detected neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. Unfortunately it turned out not to be the case. Far from the explanation being scientific, or due to some error in the measurements it all came down to the most mundane of explanations a faulty connection.

Fifty-years ago today John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth and the fifth man to go into space after succesful orbits by Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov and sub-orbital hops by Americans Alan Shepherd and Gus Grissom.

The long awaited axe finally fell on the NASA program budget. Surprisingly, it was not James Webb Space Telescope carried the blow, but the joint European ExoMars programme.