http://www.physorg.com/space-news/space-exploration/ en-us PhysOrg Team PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on space, space exploration, space science and earth sciences. (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft re-entered our solar system's asteroid belt today, Nov. 13, and this time it will stay there. http://www.physorg.com/news177615422.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T18:30:02-07:00 (AP) -- With 100 Internet-savvy NASA fans cheering on the shuttle and churning out constant Twitter updates, Atlantis sailed smoothly into orbit Monday with six astronauts and a full load of spare parts for the International Space Station. http://www.physorg.com/news177615671.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T17:41:47-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Massive, bright clouds of tiny ice particles hover above the darkened rings of Saturn in an image captured by the Cassini spacecraft on Sept. 22, 2009, around the time of Saturn's equinox. http://www.physorg.com/news177615491.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T17:40:13-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA has successfully completed a series of autonomous "drop" tests of a robotic lander test article - in a record 10 months - to demonstrate the ability to perform a controlled landing on the moon or other airless planetary bodies. http://www.physorg.com/news177614572.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T17:23:23-07:00 Scientists with NASA`s IceBite project are heading this week for University Valley, a hanging valley perched more than 1600 feet (more than 1 mile) above sea level in Antarctica`s McMurdo Dry Valleys. Their objective: to test a set of ice-penetrating drills and select one for use on a future mission to the martian polar north, the same region of the planet that NASA`s Phoenix lander investigated in 2008. http://www.physorg.com/news177613575.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T17:07:23-07:00 (AP) -- Astronauts climbed aboard space shuttle Atlantis on Monday for an afternoon liftoff to the space station, as the sky over the launching site gradually cleared. http://www.physorg.com/news177603466.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T14:18:17-07:00 (AP) -- NASA is fueling space shuttle Atlantis for its afternoon liftoff. http://www.physorg.com/news177572532.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-16T05:43:25-07:00 (AP) -- Fingers will be flying when space shuttle Atlantis blasts off Monday: About 100 of NASA's geekiest fans will be on hand, pecking away at iPhones, BlackBerrys, laptops and other Twittering gadgets. http://www.physorg.com/news177516068.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-15T14:30:01-07:00 (AP) -- NASA has cleared space shuttle Atlantis for liftoff Monday on a trip to stock up the International Space Station with several years' worth of spare parts. http://www.physorg.com/news177440471.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-14T17:02:27-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Images and data taken just before closest approach were downloaded this morning, and they show the lights of North America in the night and a glowing Southern Hemisphere. http://www.physorg.com/news177345195.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T14:50:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- An experiment by college students that will study how microbes grow in microgravity is heading to orbit aboard space shuttle Atlantis. http://www.physorg.com/news177345802.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T14:43:54-07:00 In a partnership that exemplifies the One NASA theme, Goddard Space Flight Center engineers teamed up with the External Payloads Group at Johnson Space Center and the ISS Payload Ground Processing support team at Kennedy Space Center to create the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC) Project. http://www.physorg.com/news177337979.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T13:40:02-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- At today's launch countdown status briefing held at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managers reported space shuttle Atlantis, its payload and crew are ready for launch at 2:28 p.m. EST on Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news177340580.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T13:30:02-07:00 (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 and space enthusiasts alike. http://www.physorg.com/news177337293.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T12:22:09-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Impact craters on Mars are kind of neat. Many of them look very different than impact craters seen on Earth's moon or Mercury. Fresh lunar and Mercurian craters have ejecta blankets that look a bit rough near the crater rims; around larger craters, long rays or chains of secondary craters radiate away from the crater rims. Some Martian craters are similar to these craters, but Mars also has a high proportion of craters with forms not found on the moon or Mercury: rampart craters. http://www.physorg.com/news177321519.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T07:59:51-07:00 (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 journey to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. http://www.physorg.com/news177313479.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-13T05:48:20-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The Leonid meteor shower best viewing this year will be in the hours before dawn on Nov. 17. http://www.physorg.com/news177261848.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-12T16:30:02-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- This spectacular image of our home planet was captured by the OSIRIS instrument on ESA's Rosetta comet chaser earlier today as the spacecraft approached Earth for the third and final swingby. Closest approach is due at 08:45 CET, 13 November 2009. http://www.physorg.com/news177262843.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-12T15:50:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA will begin transmitting commands to its Mars exploration rover Spirit on Monday as part of an escape plan to free the venerable robot from its Martian sand trap. http://www.physorg.com/news177260630.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-12T15:40:03-07:00 (AP) -- A cargo ship has delivered a Russian research module to the International Space Station. http://www.physorg.com/news177254686.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-12T13:25:04-07:00 When Europe's comet chaser Rosetta swings by Earth tomorrow for a critical gravity assist, tracking data will be collected to precisely measure the satellite's change in orbital energy. The results could help unravel a cosmic mystery that has stumped scientists for two decades. http://www.physorg.com/news177245318.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-12T10:49:40-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Engineers are busy cooling the science instrument on NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The spacecraft is scheduled to blast into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Dec. 7, 2009. It will map the entire sky in infrared light, uncovering all sorts of hidden treasures -- everything from the coolest stars to dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies. http://www.physorg.com/news177183557.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-11T17:50:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Into its second week in orbit, Proba-2's spacecraft platform has proven to be in excellent health. This leaves the way clear for commissioning the many new technology payloads aboard the mini-satellite, among the smallest ever flown by ESA. http://www.physorg.com/news177179866.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-11T16:50:01-07:00 Once upon a time - roughly four billion years ago - Mars was warm and wet, much like Earth. Liquid water flowed on the Martian surface in long rivers that emptied into shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm. Living microbes might have even arisen, some scientists believe, starting Mars down the path toward becoming a second life-filled planet next door to our own. http://www.physorg.com/news177179617.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-11T16:34:12-07:00 Sunspots, which rotate around the sun's surface, tell us a great deal about our own planet. Scientists rely on them, for instance, to measure the sun's rotation or to prepare long-range forecasts of the Earth's health. http://www.physorg.com/news177169609.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-11T14:50:01-07:00 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 are the magnetic fields, the engines of it all. The SUNRISE balloon-borne telescope, a collaborative project between the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau and partners in Germany, Spain and the USA, has now delivered images that show the complex interplay on the solar surface to a level of detail never before achieved. http://www.physorg.com/news177164239.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-11T12:17:58-07:00 This year's Leonid meteor shower peaks on Tuesday, Nov. 17th. If forecasters are correct, the shower should produce a mild but pretty sprinkling of meteors over North America followed by a more intense outburst over Asia. The phase of the Moon will be new, setting the stage for what could be one of the best Leonid showers in years. http://www.physorg.com/news177093817.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-10T16:46:47-07:00 The Voyager spacecraft are now in the outermost layer of the heliosphere, traveling toward interstellar space - the first man-made spacecraft to travel such a vast distance from Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news177092513.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-10T16:40:01-07:00 When NASA's space shuttle Atlantis launches for the International Space Station on Nov. 16 it will carry a University of Colorado at Boulder butterfly experiment that will be monitored by thousands of K-12 students across the nation. http://www.physorg.com/news177084112.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-10T14:40:01-07:00 Is there life on other planets? The Vatican has asked that age-old question over the past five days during a "study week" on astrobiology gathering leading scientists from around the world. http://www.physorg.com/news177083464.html Space & Earth - Space Exploration 2009-11-10T14:10:05-07:00