Imagine this: A wedge-shaped aircraft attached to a supersonic jet engine is hurtling along an electrified track, carrying a pod or spacecraft destined for orbit.
Sound farfetched? It may not be.
During their missions, the two Viking landers vaporized Martian dirt and scrutinized the samples for signs of carbon-based molecules that could serve as the raw ingredients for life. At the time, all they found were chlorine compounds attributed to c
The impacts are bright enough to see through backyard telescopes on Earth. Indeed, amateur astronomers were the first to detect them, recording two fireballs in 2010 alone—one on June 3rd and another on Au
A Chinese communications satellite launched Saturday on a Long March rocket, beginning a mission to broadcast civil television and radio signals across China.
Only a very select few in the US military know what it's for, but observers on Earth believe they're putting together the puzzle piece by piece.
Several sources claim quote arms control advocates who say it's clearly the beginning of the "weapon
Only a very select few in the US military know what it's for, but observers on Earth believe they're putting together the puzzle piece by piece.
Several sources claim quote arms control advocates who say it's clearly the beginning of the "weapon
The world’s first volunteer-built, not-for-profit passenger rocket funded purely by donations and sponsorships is preparing for launch next week, ticking off a milestone in human spaceflight history.
Out there, the bacteria were exposed to everything from the wild temperature swings between day and night, cosmic radiation, extreme exposure to ultraviolet light, and the effects of the vacuum of space.
The bugs were put on the exterior of the space station to see how they would cope in the hostile conditions that exist above the Earth's atmosphere. And when scientists inspected the microbes a year and a half later, they found many still alive.
Seasoned skywatchers in North American may have several chances to spot the U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane fly overhead with the help of a smart phone app that helps track satellites.
Astronauts can become as weak as 80-year-olds after 6 months at the International Space Station, that raises serious health concerns as NASA contemplates prolonged trips to asteroids and Mars. Accelerated space aging is temporary: muscles recover aft
SpaceX recently completed its first Dragon high altitude drop test and it was 100% successful! Designed to validate the Dragon's parachute deployment systems and recovery operations prior to the first flight of an operational Dragon this year.
We talked to the Spitzer Space Telescope's visualization team about the challenges and rewards of rendering the mission's reams of non-visual data into something that catches the public eye. Plus: a gallery of their all-time favorite works
A neutron star with a mighty magnetic field has thrown down the gauntlet to theories about stellar evolution and the birth of black holes. The "magnetar" lies in a cluster of stars known as Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light years away in the constel
Scientists studying the possibility of building an elevator into space envision a ribbon made of carbon nanotubes stretching from the surface of the Earth up into geosynchronous orbit. Crafts, like elevator cars, could carry people and goods up the r
On August 1, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. At about the same time, an enormous magnetic filament stretching across the sun's northern hemisphere erupted. Recorded by STEREO and SDO respectively.
A solar flare from the sun this week poses no threat to astronauts on the International Space Station or plans for vital spacewalk repairs on the orbiting lab, NASA officials say.
A vivid new photo of the sun has revealed a new view of a solar eruption in the star's northern hemisphere that blasted charged particles in Earth's direction this week, according to NASA officials.
Those of you who thought 3-D had jumped the shark, check this out. Using a new instrument at the Very Large Telescope, astronomers have been able to capture a three-dimensional view of the distribution of the innermost material expelled by a supernov
Earlier this week in an interview with Big Think, physicist Stephen Hawking warned that humans will face extinction if they do not find another planet to inhabit.
In the video interview posted below Hawking says, "We are entering an increasingly
A balloon 37 metres across would take just one year to drag a 1200-kilogram satellite from an initial orbit of 830 kilometres to an altitude low enough to burn up in the atmosphere, the Global Aerospace team calculates. Without the balloon, this woul
On Sunday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a complex magnetic eruption on the sun. The NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) also spotted a large coronal mass ejection (CME) The eruption happened around (3:50 am EST), the SDO de
And now, within the past month, another rock has hit the roof of his house, in defiance of all the odds - making it six strikes since the plague of meteorites began in 2007.
Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that all the falling rocks
A giant black hole spouting energy from inside a galaxy is acting like a cosmic magnifying glass, giving astronomers a clear view of an even more distant galaxy behind it.
It took mankind centuries to map the Earth, and even with all of the indexed knowledge in the world behind it Google can't always figure out exactly where the nearest Pinkberry is. So one might imagine how even with the amazing leaps in technology ov
Yesterday saw the discovery of an extremely massive, extremely bright star in a neighboring galaxy. Today NASA says Hubble has discovered a fast-moving star that’s much closer – but getting further away at a very rapid rate.