Space Exploration news

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

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

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 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

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

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 20, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (15) | comments 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

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

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 13, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 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

A bubbling ball of gas (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 11, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 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

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (14) | comments 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 ...


Space hotel taking bookings for 2012 opening

Space hotel taking bookings for 2012 opening

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 05, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (21) | comments 11

(PhysOrg.com) -- The first orbiting space hotel is on track to open for its first customers in 2012, but hurry, as bookings are filling fast.


Success in 'space elevator' competition (AP)

Success in 'space elevator' competition (Update 3)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 05, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (37) | comments 54

(AP) -- A robot powered by a ground-based laser beam climbed a long cable dangling from a helicopter on Wednesday to qualify for prize money in a $2 million competition to test the potential reality of the ...


Hidden Territory on Mercury Revealed

Hidden Territory on Mercury Revealed

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (20) | comments 1

The MESSENGER spacecraft's third flyby of the planet Mercury has given scientists, for the first time, an almost complete view of the planet's surface and revealed some dramatic changes in Mercury's comet-like ...


Spacesuits with artificial intelligence may look for life on Mars

Spacesuits with artificial intelligence may look for life on Mars

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronauts may in future be wearing spacesuits equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and digital eyes, turning them into what the researchers call cyborg astrobiologists.


A Mars Rover Named 'Curiosity'

A Mars Rover Named 'Curiosity'

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 30, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- If you found your grandmother's diary, tattered and dust covered, up in the attic, would you read it? Of course you would. Granny was a pistol! Brush off the dust, open up the little book, ...


2 parachutes malfunctioned in NASA test flight (AP)

2 parachutes malfunctioned in NASA test flight

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 30, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1

(AP) -- Two of three parachutes malfunctioned in the test flight of a prototype moon rocket earlier this week, causing major damage to the booster, NASA said Friday.


Russia hopes nuclear ship will fly humans to Mars (AP)

Russia hopes nuclear ship will fly humans to Mars

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 29, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (33) | comments 36

(AP) -- Russia should build a new nuclear-powered spaceship for prospective manned missions to Mars and other planets, the nation's space chief said Thursday.


NASA's new moon rocket makes first test flight (AP)

NASA's Ares I-X moon rocket makes first test flight

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 28, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (25) | comments 17

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight.


Robot Armada Might Scale New Worlds

Robot Armada Might Scale New Worlds

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 28, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (11) | comments 5

(PhysOrg.com) -- An armada of robots may one day fly above the mountain tops of Saturn's moon Titan, cross its vast dunes and sail in its liquid lakes.


Meteorite from Sept. 25 fireball event recovered and presented

Meteorite from Sept. 25 fireball event recovered and presented

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Oct 16, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 2

When Tony Garchinski heard a loud crash just after 9 p.m. on Friday, September 25 he didn't think much of it. That is, until he awoke the next morning to find the windshield of his mom's Nissan Pathfinder ...