http://www.physorg.com/space-news/ en-us PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on earth science, astronomy and space exploration. (AP) -- A spacewalking astronaut put aside the impending birth of his daughter and blazed through his first-ever venture outside the International Space Station on Saturday. http://www.physorg.com/news178009250.html Space & Earth Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:33:55 EST news178009250 Australia has issued "catastrophic" alerts after record-breaking temperatures and wild lightning storms sparked more than 100 fires across the country, officials said Saturday. http://www.physorg.com/news178025073.html Space & Earth Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:25:26 EST news178025073 NJIT researchers are at work on many scientific and technological frontiers. The National Science Foundation has recently provided support that totals nearly $4.3 million for the diverse efforts of the following investigators under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. http://www.physorg.com/news177955106.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:30:05 EST news177955106 (PhysOrg.com) -- Actor Dwayne Johnson, usually known for his action and comedic film roles, takes to the stars as an astronaut in a new animated feature that brings important messages about the importance of space exploration and education to those of us here on Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news177948639.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:40:01 EST news177948639 (PhysOrg.com) -- A research team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder has found a clever way to use traditional GPS satellite signals to measure snow depth as well as soil and vegetation moisture, a technique expected to benefit meteorologists, water resource managers, climate modelers and farmers. http://www.physorg.com/news177948533.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:20:07 EST news177948533 On the beach at Monster, bulldozers painstakingly turn sand dredged from the bottom of the North Sea bed into dunes in an ambitious effort to safeguard the Netherlands from flooding. http://www.physorg.com/news177946209.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:10:02 EST news177946209 Scientists from the Marine Biogeochemistry and Geology and Geophysics sections of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) organized and led a team of university and government scientists on an Arctic expedition to initiate methane hydrate exploration in the Beaufort Sea and determine the spatial variation of sediment contribution to Arctic climate change. http://www.physorg.com/news177948181.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:08:11 EST news177948181 (AP) -- Atlantis' astronauts anxiously awaited word on the birth of one crewman's daughter Friday, as they moved more supplies into the International Space Station and geared up for another spacewalk. http://www.physorg.com/news177943490.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:45:26 EST news177943490 Lehigh University's Energy Research Center (ERC) has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop methods of recovering and reusing the heat that would be generated by the carbon-dioxide (CO2) compression process in a carbon capture system. The goal of the research project is to facilitate carbon capture and sequestration, or storage (CCS), and thus limit the amount of CO2, a greenhouse gas, emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants. http://www.physorg.com/news177940311.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:54:44 EST news177940311 (PhysOrg.com) -- When NASA's Cassini spacecraft began orbiting Saturn five years ago, a dozen highly-tuned science instruments set to work surveying, sniffing, analyzing and scrutinizing the Saturnian system. http://www.physorg.com/news177927581.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:20:02 EST news177927581 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft will fly by Saturn's moon Enceladus this weekend for a last peek at the intriguing "tiger stripes" before winter darkness blankets the area for several years. http://www.physorg.com/news177927284.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:30:02 EST news177927284 From a devastating food crisis in Guatemala to water cuts in Venezuela, El Nino has compounded drought damage across Latin America this year. http://www.physorg.com/news177921078.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:50:11 EST news177921078 (AP) -- The astronauts aboard the shuttle-station complex are getting some extra moving time. http://www.physorg.com/news177919612.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:11:35 EST news177919612 A proposed space mission that aims to measure dark energy could also detect planets that current surveys are unable to find. http://www.physorg.com/news177874211.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:00:05 EST news177874211 You don't always have to have a rocket to do rocket science. Sometimes a mere airplane will do - that is, a mere Boeing 747 toting a 17-ton, 9-foot wide telescope named SOFIA. http://www.physorg.com/news177874574.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:50:02 EST news177874574 (AP) -- A pair of spacewalking astronauts, one of them a surgeon, hustled through antenna and cable work outside the International Space Station on Thursday and even whipped off an extra chore. http://www.physorg.com/news177847217.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:48:03 EST news177847217 Arnie Miller, University of Cincinnati professor of paleontology in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, and co-author Michael Foote of the University of Chicago publish their research in the Nov. 20 issue of Science with their paper, "Epicontinental Seas Versus Open-Ocean Settings: The Kinetics of Mass Extinction and Origination." http://www.physorg.com/news177873594.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:23:28 EST news177873594 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two key instruments from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have a new home in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington after being returned to Earth aboard space shuttle Atlantis last May. http://www.physorg.com/news177872673.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:07:27 EST news177872673 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sometimes you really can believe your eyes. That's what NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) is telling researchers about a controversial phenomenon on the sun known as the "solar tsunami." http://www.physorg.com/news177872248.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:00:58 EST news177872248 (AP) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Thursday for all countries to fix binding climate change targets next year at the latest, acknowledging that no such deal is likely at global talks in Copenhagen next month. http://www.physorg.com/news177868179.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:10:01 EST news177868179 (PhysOrg.com) -- Much of our planet's mineral wealth was deposited billions of years ago when Earth's chemical cycles were different from today's. Using geochemical clues from rocks nearly 3 billion years old, a group of scientists including Andrey Bekker and Doug Rumble from the Carnegie Institution have made the surprising discovery that the creation of economically important nickel ore deposits was linked to sulfur in the ancient oxygen-poor atmosphere. http://www.physorg.com/news177863954.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:30:01 EST news177863954 Sustainable farming, initially adopted to preserve soil quality for future generations, may also play a role in maintaining a healthy climate, according to researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories. http://www.physorg.com/news177864926.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:20:06 EST news177864926 (PhysOrg.com) -- Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction. http://www.physorg.com/news177864298.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:45:49 EST news177864298 The MIRAS instrument on ESA's SMOS satellite, launched earlier this month, has been switched on and is operating normally. MIRAS will map soil moisture and ocean salinity to improve our understanding of the role these two key variables play in regulating Earth's water cycle. http://www.physorg.com/news177852427.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:27:43 EST news177852427 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's premiere supercomputer located at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has garnered the sixth spot on the Top500 list of the world's most powerful computers. http://www.physorg.com/news177846588.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:01 EST news177846588 (PhysOrg.com) -- Because the first extrication drive for Spirit, on Sol 2088 (Nov. 17), stopped as soon as it began due to an exceeded tilt limit, the plan for an extrication drive on Sol 2090 (Nov. 19) will essentially be a repeat of the first drive plan, but with improved rover attitude knowledge. The updated attitude knowledge comes from the rover's measurement of its tilt on Sol 2088. http://www.physorg.com/news177844519.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:17:08 EST news177844519 (PhysOrg.com) -- A research group at Kyoto University has discovered that shocks are the primary energy sources that excite the galactic wind region of starburst galaxy NGC 253. Their images of the center of this galaxy, bright with intense star formation, have generated findings that substantially increase our meager knowledge of the physical properties of galactic winds and move us closer to understanding galaxy evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news177783331.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:20:03 EST news177783331 Astronomers have found that the extrasolar planet HAT-P-7b has a retrograde or highly tilted orbit. Studying such planets is important in understanding the diversity of planetary systems and assessing current models of how planets migrate. The findings could help astrobiologists in the search for habitable planets beyond our solar system. http://www.physorg.com/news177783167.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:30:19 EST news177783167 The Dutch government said Wednesday it had approved the experimental below-ground storage of excess CO2 to curb damaging emissions, dismissing concerns of residents who live on top of the project. http://www.physorg.com/news177784093.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:28:54 EST news177784093 A new generation of "green" automobile tires that can boost fuel efficiency without sacrificing safety and durability is rolling their way through the research pipeline. The new tires could help add an extra mile or two per gallon to a car's fuel economy. That's the topic of the cover story of the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News, (C&EN) ACS' weekly newsmagazine. http://www.physorg.com/news177772433.html Space & Earth Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:20:01 EST news177772433