Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.
Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday afternoon at California's Edwards Air Force Base after NASA waved off two opportunities for a Florida landing because of poor weather.
Their work in orbit accomplished, space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts got the green light Saturday to return to Earth, but were warned "pretty iffy" weather at the main landing site could send them across the country or keep them up an extra day.
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven departed the international space station on Friday, ending a 12-day visit that left the orbiting complex with more modern and deluxe living quarters for bigger crews.
From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe.
Scientists have switched off several on-board instruments to halt rising temperatures inside India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft.
Scientists have better maps of distant Mars than the moon where astronauts have walked. But India hopes to change that with its first lunar mission.
Astronauts from the shuttle Endeavour completed their third spacewalk Saturday after nearly seven hours working on a joint that helps generate power for the international space station.
Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.
Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday afternoon at California's Edwards Air Force Base after NASA waved off two opportunities for a Florida landing because of poor weather.
Their work in orbit accomplished, space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts got the green light Saturday to return to Earth, but were warned "pretty iffy" weather at the main landing site could send them across the country or keep them up an extra day.
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of seven departed the international space station on Friday, ending a 12-day visit that left the orbiting complex with more modern and deluxe living quarters for bigger crews.
From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe.
Scientists have switched off several on-board instruments to halt rising temperatures inside India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft.
Scientists have better maps of distant Mars than the moon where astronauts have walked. But India hopes to change that with its first lunar mission.
Astronauts from the shuttle Endeavour completed their third spacewalk Saturday after nearly seven hours working on a joint that helps generate power for the international space station.
Things didn't go quite according to plan for astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper during her spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday.
A TV-size probe adorned with a painting of the Indian flag successfully rammed into the moon Friday evening as part of the country's first unmanned lunar mission, Indian space officials said.
The international space station's three crew members Sunday welcomed aboard space shuttle Endeavour's seven astronauts, who arrived to help install more living areas and upgrade amenities.
Space shuttle Endeavour has docked with the international space station 220 miles up.
NASA said Saturday that the day-old mission of space shuttle Endeavour, which is carrying seven astronauts to the international space station, is going smoothly despite problems with a lost thermal blanket and a malfunctioning antenna.
Riding a brilliant tower of flame into the night sky, the space shuttle Endeavour left Earth on Friday, carrying seven astronauts on a 15-day mission to the international space station.
The first-ever pictures of planets outside the solar system have been released in two studies.
An approaching cold front could thwart NASA's plans to launch space shuttle Endeavour on Friday on a flight to the international space station.
A dust storm and the onset of Martian winter have brought the Phoenix Mars Lander's mission to an end, NASA announced Monday.
The international space station is about to get all the comforts of a modern, high-end, "green" home: a fancy recycling water filter, a new fridge, extra bedrooms, workout equipment and the essential half-bath.
NASA's plans to fly a fifth and final space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope have suffered another set-back.
With a visit to the Hubble Space Telescope off until next spring at the earliest, NASA on Thursday chose November 14 for its next space shuttle launch, a flight by Endeavour to the international space station.
The Phoenix Mars Lander has entered a state of suspended operation called "safe mode" due to low power, mission managers said Thursday. And while they hope to recharge batteries and reactivate the spacecraft in the coming days, they say the rapid onset of the Martian winter means Phoenix's days are severely numbered.
Venezuela's first satellite roared into space Thursday from a launching pad in southwest China.
Your work is dangerous and your co-workers rely on you to stay alive. But you can never get far from those colleagues. You can't see your family for months, even years. The food isn't great. And forget stepping out for some fresh air.
India blasted into the international space race Wednesday with the successful launch of an ambitious two-year mission to study the moon's landscape.
India launched its first lunar mission on Wednesday, with hopes of achieving high-resolution images of the moon's topography and diving into the international space race.
India was set to launch its first lunar mission Wednesday, putting the country in an elite group of nations with the scientific know-how to reach the moon, while heating up a burgeoning Asian space race.
A NASA spacecraft circled the Earth on Monday at the start of a project to study the edges of the solar system.
A small NASA spacecraft embarks on a two-year mission this weekend to give scientists their first view of the happenings at the edge of the solar system.
Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland have hit two new snags in their effort to repair the Hubble Space Telescope after a major equipment failure in space last month.
NASA engineers say they know how to fix the broken Hubble Space Telescope: They have to wake up computer parts that have been sleeping in space for more than 18 years.
By next fall, NASA plans to launch its biggest Red Planet rover yet, the $1.8-billion, SUV-size Mars Research Laboratory. Even though the MRL will be able to haul five times as much equipment as the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that are already on Mars, a group of Swedish researchers say that they could accomplish far more if accompanied by a squad of helper 'bots.
NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has discovered evidence of past water at its Martian landing site and spotted falling snow for the first time, scientists reported Monday.
Hanny van Arkel was poring over photos of galaxies on the Internet in August 2007 when she stumbled across a strange object in the night sky: a bright, gaseous mass with a gaping hole in its middle.
Space tourist Richard Garriott has arrived at the International Space Station for a 10-day stay for which he paid the Russian government an estimated $30 million.
A Soyuz spacecraft with two Americans and a Russian on board lifted off from Kazakhstan on Sunday for the international space station.
A U.S. spacecraft beamed hundreds of photos of Mercury back to Earth on Tuesday after a close encounter with the planet closest to the sun.
A meteor, or shooting star, is usually the size of a pebble, or even a grain of sand, burning up in the atmosphere.
The signs of a midlife crisis are there: A 50th birthday approaching; a longing for the glory days of youth; a hankering to dump the aging partner of 27 years; and a costly flirtation with a new young thing.
NASA said Monday that it is delaying its mission to the Hubble Space Telescope until next year because of a serious breakdown of the observatory in orbit.
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth Sunday, completing a three-day mission that included China's first-ever spacewalk.
A Chinese astronaut has completed his country's first-ever spacewalk as part of an ambitious program that is starting to rival the United States and Russia in its rapid expansion.
China's three-man spacecraft shifted from an oval orbit to a more stable circular orbit 342 kilometers (213 miles) above Earth on Friday in preparation for the country's first attempt at a spacewalk.
China successfully launched a three-man crew into space Thursday to carry out the country's first spacewalk, beginning the nation's most challenging space mission since it first sent a person into space in 2003.
A Chinese Shenzhou-7 spaceship is scheduled to lift off Thursday evening on the nation's third manned space mission.
China started counting down Thursday to an evening rocket launch that will put a three-man crew into space where one of them will make the country's first spacewalk.
NASA has delayed the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to the moon to scout for potential landing sites for astronauts.
NASA's new moon rocket passed a crucial design milestone late Wednesday.
NASA destroyed an unmanned experimental rocket carrying a pair of research satellites Friday when it veered off course shortly after an early morning liftoff.
In August, Just Imagine took a wider look at the possibilities of tomorrow, including what could be a sign that the United States is losing ground as a leading superpower in space.
Experts are growing increasingly concerned that the United States will have to rely entirely upon Russia to take astronauts to and from the international space station for at least five years.
Experts are growing increasingly concerned that the United States will have to rely entirely upon Russia to take astronauts to and from the international space station for at least half a decade.
NASA has put off the planned launch of its next-generation Orion spacecraft for a year, a setback to efforts to fly a successor to its aging space shuttles, the space agency announced Monday.
Scientists working with NASA's Phoenix Lander are reasonably sure they have detected a toxic chemical in the soil near the north pole of Mars.
NASA's Phoenix lander has discovered a toxic chemical in soil near Mars' north pole, dimming hopes for finding life on the Red Planet, the probe's operators said Monday.
The Phoenix lander got its robotic arm onto a sample of water ice from Mars' surface and popped the ice into tiny, onboard "ovens" that will help determine if the water could support life, NASA researchers said Thursday.
At least one of many large, lake-like features on Saturn's moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, making it the only body in the solar system besides Earth known to have liquid on its surface, NASA said Wednesday.
The world's next space tourist, a computer game wizard, said Wednesday he's spending the bulk of his fortune on his $30 million adventure this fall.
British billionaire Sir Richard Branson showed off a key piece of his fledgling commercial space program Monday, unveiling a carrier aircraft designed to launch a passenger-carrying spaceship.
A total solar eclipse will darken some of Earth's skies on Friday, but geography, weather, the economy and even the Olympics are combining to make it a hard and expensive for people to see it.
Aerospace engineers have been holed up in a Mojave Desert hangar for four years, fashioning a commercial spaceship to loft rich tourists some 62 miles above Earth.
The No. 1 need right now for some of the builders of the nation's next spaceship: Lots of urine.
In a daring spacewalk, two space station astronauts cut into the insulation of their descent capsule Thursday and removed an explosive bolt that could have blown off their hands with firecracker force.
The fun won't be over for the University of Arizona when batteries for the school-led Phoenix Mars Lander fail and its computers freeze up in the Martian arctic after its three-month mission ends.
When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal.
The Phoenix lander's first taste test of soil near Mars' north pole reveals a briny environment similar to what can be found in backyards on Earth, scientists said Thursday.
Why is Mars two-faced? Scientists say fresh evidence supports the theory that a monster impact punched the red planet, leaving behind perhaps the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.
Bizarre microbes flourish in the most punishing environments on Earth from the bone-dry Atacama Desert in Chile to the boiling hot springs of Yellowstone National Park to the sunless sea bottom vents in the Pacific.
When Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, he uttered unforgettable words. But the next visitor to roam the lunar landscape may send back e-mail instead.
Scientists believe that NASA's Phoenix Mars lander exposed bits of ice while recently digging a trench in the soil of the Martian arctic, the mission's principal investigator said Thursday.
The Phoenix lander stopped digging soil near Mars' north pole Wednesday as engineers on Earth worked to fix a glitch that caused the loss of a day's worth of photos.
European astronomers have found a trio of "super-Earths" closely circling a star that astronomers once figured had nothing orbiting it.
Shuttle Discovery and its crew of seven returned to Earth on Saturday and capped a successful expansion job at the international space station, more spacious and robust thanks to a new billion-dollar science lab.
The debris spotted floating away from space shuttle Discovery has been preliminarily identified as a thermal clip from the shuttle's brake system, NASA said Friday.
NASA engineers were trying to identify an object that floated away from Discovery and were analyzing a protrusion found on its rudder Friday, a day before the space shuttle was scheduled to land.
NASA gave shuttle Discovery's astronauts some well-deserved time off Thursday as their flight wound down and the international space station was left farther and farther behind.
NASA's Phoenix Mars lander was not the only one doing the shaking.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has paid $5 million to secure a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, officials said Wednesday.
NASA launched a telescope Wednesday to scout out elusive, super high-energy gamma rays lurking in the universe.
The official group that names objects in the solar system is calling all distant dwarf planets "plutoids" after the planet that was demoted to dwarf status.
The official group that names objects in the solar system is calling all distant dwarf planets "plutoids" after the planet that was demoted to dwarf status.
Space shuttle Discovery pulled away from the international space station on Wednesday and began its journey home, ending a nine-day visit highlighted by the installation of a new Japanese lab.
The astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle and station complex shook hands and hugged goodbye Tuesday as the doors swung shut between their spacecraft on the eve of undocking.
Scientists troubleshooting the Phoenix lander said Monday that they will try one last shake to get a scoopful of Martian dirt inside a tiny oven in hopes of jump-starting their study of Mars' north pole region.
Astronauts on the international space station Monday flexed some of the muscles on a robotic arm attached to a new Japanese lab they delivered and helped install on the orbiting outpost.
Shuttle Discovery's astronauts breezed through their third and final spacewalk Sunday, replacing an empty gas tank at the international space station and collecting a sample of dusty debris.
Astronauts debuted the international space station's newest piece of equipment Saturday during a successful but very limited test.
The first sample of Martian dirt dumped onto the opening of the Phoenix lander's tiny testing oven failed to reach the instrument, and scientists said Saturday that they will devote a few days to trying to determine the cause.
The newest space station addition, a giant Japanese science lab, is about to get bigger.
Spacewalking astronauts worked on the outside of Japan's shiny new science lab Thursday, installing cameras and removing covers.
The Phoenix lander's first dig into the Martian soil for scientific study was delayed Wednesday because of a communications glitch on a spacecraft that relays commands from Earth to the red planet.
To everybody's relief, astronauts fixed the toilet at the international space station Wednesday and opened a grand science lab.
This month, Just Imagine has looked at the future of space, and the potential it holds for humanity.
A team of astronauts working inside and out anchored a giant billion-dollar Japanese lab to the international space station Tuesday, making it the biggest room there.
Space shuttle Discovery performed a slow back flip and then docked at the international space station Monday, delivering a mammoth lab and two new occupants: a NASA astronaut and Buzz Lightyear.
If Dr. Robert Zubrin could take a trip to Mars, he would be sure to pack a bread maker in his suitcase. Not just because bread is a pretty reliable expeditionary food, but because the act of cooking, according to Zubrin, seems to help people get along with each other, especially when they are in slightly dire, less than luxurious and more than stressful circumstances.
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