Latest science news in Astronomy & Space
Earth's Moon and Huge Asteroid Vesta Share Violent History
A new interpretation of radiometric dating on the asteroid Vesta shows that rocks smashed into the surface at higher speeds during the early solar system.
New crew docks at space station
MOSCOW, March 29 (UPI) -- A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying new crew members to the International Space Station docked with the station as scheduled late Thursday, officials said.
FEATURE: With or without you: the role of the moon on life
How does the moon affect Earth’s inhabitants? Jonti Horner explains.
Asteroid fire may have burned all of Earth
BOULDER, Colo., March 28 (UPI) -- An ancient asteroid impact may have caused a global firestorm on Earth that burned every twig, bush and tree on the planet, U.S....
Hunting Massive Stars with Herschel
In a new view of a vast star-forming cloud called W3, the Herschel space observatory tells the story of how massive stars are born.
'Graceful Eruption' on Sun Revealed in Stunning Photo
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the amazing sun eruption.
Telescope sees Milky Way 'newcomers' form
GARCHING, Germany, March 27 (UPI) -- The Milky Way galaxy is old -- some of its stars are 13 billion years old -- but it's active with new stars...
Whoa! Mini-supernovas discovered
Astronomers believe they found a new type of supernova, Type lax, that appears to be a miniature star explosion
NASA 'Super Guppy' Swallows Supersonic NASA Jets (Photos)
NASA's Super Guppy Transport plane ferried a pair of retired supersonic jets to Texas last week.
Solar System's Mysterious Rock Origin Puzzle Revealed
Chondrules, one of the solar system's first solids, heated up in regions far away from the sun, scientists think.
Measuring Mars: The MAVEN magnetometer
When the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission begins its journey to the Red Planet in 2013, it will carry a sensitive magnetic-field instrument built and tested by a team...
Pictures: Auroras of February and March
Starbursts, alien landscapes, and magenta bands of light: Take a look at some of the best aurora photos from February and March.
Backpack Mapping System Captures Intelligence in Tough-to-Get-to Places
Engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., have developed a portable device -- carried in a backpack -- that can be used to automatically...
Edgar Mitchell: Sixth Man on the Moon
Ed Mitchell's experience aboard Apollo 14 launched his exploration of the nature of human consciousness.
James Cameron to Donate Deep-Sea Craft to Woods Hole Institute
James Cameron, who rode the Deepsea Challenger into the sea’s deepest spot last year, hopes the donation to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will speed ocean exploration.
Higgs physics on the cheap
Tabletop Higgs particles may illuminate cosmic cousin.Nature 495 422 doi: 10.1038/495422a
Planck snaps infant Universe
Space telescope culls exotic creation theories with ultra-precise microwave map.Nature 495 417 doi: 10.1038/495417a
Jeff Bezos' Apollo Rocket Engines Land in Kansas for Conservation
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center will oversee the restoration of Jeff Bezos' vintage NASA Apollo rocket engines.
LRO's spectrograph observes mercury and hydrogen in GRAIL impact plumes (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) —When NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft made their final descent for impact onto the Moon's surface last December, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's sophisticated payload was in position to observe the...
Space Shuttle Enterprise Added to Historic Places Registry
NASA's space shuttle Enterprise not only made history, now it is history … literally.
Astronaut named chief marshal
The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) announced that Stephanie D. Wilson ’88, a NASA astronaut and engineer who flew three missions aboard the space shuttle Discovery, has been chosen by her classmates to serve...
Speckled eggs and the early universe | Jon Butterworth | Life & Physics
"The deviations were there way before that... That's what makes this so cool." Ed Copeland explains Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and the Planck results.Still wondering exactly why Plancks speckled-egg pictures...
'Snow White' coating protects SpaceX Dragon's trunk against rigors of space
(Phys.org) —He described it as "snow white." But NASA astronaut Don Pettit was not referring to the popular children's fairy tale.
Ames' E. coli small satellite study selected for flight
NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) recently selected E. coli AntiMicrobial Satellite (EcAMSat) as one of 24 small satellites to fly as secondary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2014,...
Miners shoot for the stars in tech race
A self-sustaining mechanised colony that mines and exports resources from the Moon could be a reality within a generation, helping to meet demand for materials key to innovation on Earth.
SCIENCE: YouTube Videos Unlock Meteor’s Secrets
Scientists around the world have been using videos made by regular citizens and uploaded to YouTube, to figure out where in space the meteor that exploded over Russia on Feb....
Q & A: Do Spacecraft Carry IDs of Their Earthly Origins?
Pioneer 10 and 11 carry plaques intended to show where they came from and who made them, and other spacecraft contain information about Earth and humankind.
Space and climate change
Sometimes, science fiction is also science fact. Katherine Wyman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), began her Thursday night discussion, “Dark Cloud Encounters,” by recalling a 2003 episode of the revived “Twilight...