Comets that circle the Sun in very elongated orbits spread their debris so thin along their orbit or eject it out of the solar system altogether so that their meteor showers are hard to detect. From a new meteor shower survey published in the journal Icarus, researchers now report that they can detect showers from the debris in the path of comets that pass close to Earth orbit and are known to return as infrequently as once every 4,000 years.

"This creates a situational awareness for potentially hazardous comets that were last near Earth orbit as far back as 2,000 BC," said meteor astronomer and lead author Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute.

New artificial intelligence technology could speed up physical fault diagnosis in spacecraft and spaceflight systems, improving mission efficiency by reducing down-time.

Research in artificial intelligence for spacecraft resilience (RAISR) is software developed by Pathways intern Evana Gizzi, who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. With RAISR, artificial intelligence could diagnose faults real-time in spacecraft and spaceflight systems in general.

"The spacecraft reporting a fault is like a car with a check engine light on," Gizzi said. "You know there is an issue, but can't necessarily explain the cause. That's where the RAISR algorithm comes in, diagnosing the cause as a loose gas cap."

Right now, the ability to make inferences about what is happening that go beyond traditional 'if-then-else' fault trees is something only humans can do, Gizzi said.

China has postponed the planned launch Thursday of a rocket carrying supplies for its new space station due to technical reasons, state media said.

The China Manned Space Agency gave no details on what the reasons were, and said only that a new launch time would be "determined later," the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The blast-off was to have taken place just days after China landed a rover on Mars, as it hustles ahead with its extraterrestrial ambitions.

Beijing has pumped billions into its space programme in a bid to make up ground on pioneers Russia and the United States, with ambitious projects in Earth orbit and the landing of uncrewed craft on the Moon and Mars.

But it was heavily reprimanded by the United States and many experts for a potentially dangerous breach of space etiquette for letting a massive rocket segment free-fall to Earth earlier this month after launching the core module of China's space station.

Planned missions to return humans to the Moon need to hurry up to avoid hitting one of the busiest periods for extreme space weather, according to scientists conducting the most in-depth ever look at solar storm timing.

Scientists at the University of Reading studied 150 years of space weather data to investigate patterns in the timing of the most extreme events, which can be extremely dangerous to astronauts and satellites, and even disrupt power grids if they arrive at Earth.

The researchers found for the first time that extreme space weather events are more likely to occur early in even-numbered solar cycles, and late in odd-numbered cycles—such as the one just starting. They are also more likely during busy periods of solar activity and in bigger cycles, mirroring the pattern for moderate space weather.

The findings could have implications for the NASA-led Artemis mission, which plans to return humans to the moon in 2024, but which could be delayed to the late 2020s.

Professor Mathew Owens, a space physicist at the University of Reading, said: "Until now, the most extreme space-weather events were thought to be random in their timing and thus little could be done to plan around them.