Latest science news in Astronomy & Space
Asteroids: In search of stardust | Editorial
Nasa has announced the ultimate smash-and-grab raid: the first attempt to collect a handful of asteroid rock and bring it back to EarthThe US space agency Nasa has announced the ultimate smash-and-grab raid:...
Dot Earth: Tornado Losses in 2011 Already Match Deadliest Year
This year's tornado season has matched the previous record year, 1953, for deaths, with 519 tallied so far.
NASA sees a 14-mile-wide eye and powerful Super Typhoon Songda
Typhoon Songda became a Super Typhoon in the evening on May 26, 2011 (Eastern Daylight Time) was it reached a Category 5 status on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. NASA satellite data...
News in Brief: Atom & Cosmos
A cosmic collision heard ‘round the world, plus Saturn storms, black hole drains and more in this week’s news
Next time blame bacteria for the bad weather
Scientists report new evidence linking airborne microbes to myriad weather events
Second rocky world makes Kepler-10 a multi-planet system
The Kepler Telescope team has announced a second planet orbiting the star Kepler-10. The existence of this planet was suspected previously, but new analytical techniques were needed to confirm its...
NASA Backs Bush-Era Space Capsule
NASA's new spacecraft for exploring space beyond the low Earth orbit is not so...
JFK's 1961 speech led space exploration to new heights
Fifty years ago, on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy told a joint session of Congress that "this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade...
Study: Spin of stars reveals their age
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 24 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers say they've found a way to tell the age of distant stars -- which look the same for much of their...
Astronomers spot supernova 'factory'
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 24 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers say new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggests a nearby supernova "factory" in the Milky Way has recently started production.
Student finds universe's 'missing' mass
MELBOURNE, May 24 (UPI) -- An Australian undergraduate has helped discover what has, until now, been described as the universe's "missing mass," university officials said.
Feuding helium dwarf stars exposed by eclipse
Researchers have found a unique feuding double white dwarf star system where each star appears to have been stripped down to just its helium.
Kepler Spacecraft Shows That Smaller Planets Abound
BOSTON--Score one for the little guys. After years of obscurity in the corners of distant planetary systems, smaller exoplanets are finally shuffling into the spotlight. [More]
Want to make planets? Better hurry
Currently, astronomers have two competing models for planetary formation. In one, the planets form in a single, monolithic collapse. In the second, the core forms first and then slowly accretes...
How To Create Your Own Mission Patch
For our Calliope picosatellite mission, I want to make it a real space experience. That means it needs a mission patch. And first, let me thank you all-- our fans...
Change rattles the world's biggest dish
After nearly half a century, Cornell University loses stewardship of the renowned Arecibo radio telescope.
X-SAT beams images back to Singapore
Singapore's first locally-built micro-satellite in space, X-SAT, has started to transmit images back to Singapore.
Halley Comet Chunk Ignites Fireball
A meter wide fragment of a comet that may come from a Halley Type comet – or Halley itself – slammed into Earth's atmosphere at 86,000 mph, completely disintegrating 37...
Five decades of space travel
Fifty years after the first manned space flight, almost 700 humans from nearly 40 countries have "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" and orbited our planet.
Image: Return to Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 27 Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman in a remote area southeast...
Russian superhighway brings protests
MOSCOW, May 23 (UPI) -- Environmentalists in Russia say they oppose a plan to demolish 500-year-old woodlands to construct a new super-highway linking Moscow with St. Petersburg.
Rocket Launches Human Remains, Wedding Rings into Suborbital Space
Wedding rings and human remains in space? A suborbital rocket launched this and more off the planet Friday.
50 Years of Presidential Visions for Space Exploration
A brief look at how each American president helped shape and steer American activities in space.
Space Pictures This Week: Shuttle Seen From Plane, More
A plane view of the shuttle, an enormous nebula, and dust devils on Mars feature among our editors' picks of the best new space pictures.
Space Traffic Jam Means Weird Sleep Patterns for Astronauts
Mission controllers have been juggling different sleep shifts in space, and overnight hours on the ground.
Race to Space, Through the Lens of Time
A space policy specialist has drawn on new research in archives, oral histories and memoirs to reassess the meaning of Project Apollo 50 years after its start.
Small bangs and white holes
Most gamma-ray bursts come in two flavors. Firstly, there are long duration bursts which form in dense star-forming regions and are associated with supernovae which would understandably generate a...
Earth's past, made visible
New visualizations of the Earth from space provide a unique image of how the Earth has changed over the past 750 million years.