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The NSF Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences is responsible for supporting central research in astronomy, chemistry, physics, material science and mathematics. Fleming Crim, the Assistant Director for the NSF Directorate, confirmed about the concept of gravitational waves in front of the US Congress. The LIGO Science Collaboration finally managed to observe the waves for the first time, after decades of efforts by scientists.

NASA launched Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) to know more about what happened to early atmosphere on planet Mars.

After a week into Mars orbit, the Colorado-built spacecraft found that Mars’ magnetic field was thrown into chaos by Siding Spring's magnetosphere that made a close flyby Mars.

As a precaution, many instruments on MAVEN were turned off during Siding Spring’s flyby. This is a distance similar to one-third of the distance from the Earth to the moon. Many of instruments of MAVEN were shut down in order to protect them from pressure of the comet; however, a few were set operational to observe effects of the comet.

Scientists are increasingly linking Antarctic ice sheet to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Supporting the idea, a new research published in the Journal Science claimed that during the time when ice sheet first started appearing, a fall in CO2 in atmosphere may have let ice sheet to form.

According to the research, the period known as the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, which prevailed some 34 million years ago, is believed to have been an era that led to periods of glaciations. The research has found that falling level of carbon dioxide back then has initiated ice sheet growth.

In an initiative to make future missions to the red planet successful, NASA recently launched an experimental rocket engine, which would be used to power future spacecraft to Mars and to other regions that are far off in our galaxy. The success of the launch was announced on Friday by the American space agency.

As an integral part of the Space Launch System (SLS) program, NASA had developed RS-25 rocket engine that was tested on Thursday, the high-powered device blast continuously for 500 seconds. Another rocket would be tested by NASA in near future.

The team members of Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue Origin were aware that there would be queries when the company called up media to its Kent, Washington office this week. It was the first time ever that the press got the chance to enter Blue Origin, which has worked under the wraps till date. The rocket company floated by Jeff Bezos has been working on interesting space travel projects.

During a tour and roundtable, reporters threw lot of questions at Bezos. The conversation went on for four hours.

Some of the key questions asked during the meeting were:

Durable plastic sold under commercial name PET is considered as a massive environmental hazard because it is resistant to breakdown. However, researchers have discovered a potential new match for this tough plastic. During a research project a research team from Japan has come across a microbe that is amazingly good at eating PET plastic sheets.

According to the World Economic Forum, production of an estimated 342 million tons of plastic is recorded each year across the world, and just nearly 14% is collected for recycling.

Almost all plastic degrades at an extremely slow pace, but PET, which stands for polyethylene terephthalate, is among the most durable. In year 2013 alone, nearly 61 million tons of the colorless plastic was produced across the world.