Space Exploration news

LCROSS Impact Finds Water on the Moon

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 13, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (31) | 15

(PhysOrg.com) -- The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water. Secrets the moon has been holding, for perhaps billions of years, are now being revealed to the delight of scientists ...

Life on Mars theory boosted by new methane study

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

10 hours ago | 4.8 / 5 (14) | 4

Scientists have ruled out the possibility that methane is delivered to Mars by meteorites, raising fresh hopes that the gas might be generated by life on the red planet, in research published tomorrow in Earth an ...

Virgin Galactic unveils commercial spaceship

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 07, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (8) | 2

(AP) -- A spacecraft designed to rocket wealthy tourists into space as early as 2011 was unveiled Monday in what backers of the venture hope will signal a new era in aviation history.

Virgin Galactic readies maiden suborbital flight

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 06, 2009 | 5 / 5 (22) | 11

British billionaire Sir Richard Branson will unveil a craft on Monday that could soon carry tourists on an out-of-this-world trip into space -- for a mere 200,000 dollars.

Sandtrapped Rover Makes a Big Discovery

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 03, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (53) | 11

Homer's Iliad tells the story of Troy, a city besieged by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Today, a lone robot sits besieged in the sands of Troy while engineers and scientists plot its escape.

Scientists explain puzzling lake asymmetry on Titan

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 29, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (14) | 0

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of methane and ethane ...

Cassini Captures Ghostly Dance of Saturn's Northern Lights (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 24, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (10) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the first video showing the auroras above the northern latitudes of Saturn, Cassini has spotted the tallest known "northern lights" in the solar system, flickering in shape and brightness ...

New computer-developed map shows more extensive valley network on Mars

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 23, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (9) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting the Red Planet once had an ocean.

Cassini's Big Sky: The View from the Center of Our Solar System

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 20, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (15) | 1

(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.

Rosetta bound for outer Solar System after final Earth swingby (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 13, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (7) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- This morning, mission controllers confirmed that ESA’s comet chaser Rosetta had swung by Earth at 8:45 CET as planned, skimming past our planet to pick up a gravitational boost for an epic ...

A bubbling ball of gas (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 11, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (18) | 7

The Sun is a bubbling mass. Packages of gas rise and sink, lending the sun its grainy surface structure, its granulation. Dark spots appear and disappear, clouds of matter dart up - and behind the whole thing ...

Planetary Society plans new 'solar sail'

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Nov 09, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (14) | 1

(AP) -- Four years after its first solar sail ended up in the ocean instead of orbit, The Planetary Society announced Monday that by the end of 2010 it will try again to launch a spacecraft that will be propelled by the ...

Keeping Mars Contained

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 04, 2009 | 5 / 5 (3) | 1

When robotic spacecraft bring a sample of Mars back to Earth, scientists will need specially-designed facilities to study the samples and prevent them from escaping to the outside world.

NASA puzzled why parachutes failed in rocket test

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 03, 2009 | 3.4 / 5 (5) | 3

(AP) -- NASA still isn't sure why two parachutes failed during a test flight of its prototype moon rocket just over a month ago.

STAR TRAK for December: Geminid meteors flash in December skies

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 03, 2009 | 4 / 5 (1) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The annual Geminid meteor shower, which will reach its maximum on the night of Dec. 13-14, usually offers the best show of the year, outperforming even the Perseid shower of August. This year ...