A newfound comet that plunged through the sun's atmosphere Thursday (Dec. 15) — and amazingly survived — was visibly maimed by the encounter, which left the icy wanderer without its long, bright tail, a scientist says.
According to Karl Battams, a
Allen announced today (Dec. 13) that he is forming a new company called Stratolaunch Systems, which plans to launch payloads to orbit from a huge plane at high altitude. Stratolaunch Systems continues a trend for Allen
The Russian space agency’s RadioAstron, launched in July, is the final piece of the biggest radio-telescope array ever assembled. The satellite’s 33-foot carbon-fiber dish antenna is small, but it connects it to a worldwide network of terrestrial tel
The asteroid Vesta was first discovered two centuries ago, but until NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrived there earlier this year and began beaming back images and data
Is a giant, cloaked spaceship orbiting around Mercury?
That's been the speculation from some corners aftera camera onboard NASA's STEREO spacecraft caught a wave of electronically charged material shooting out from the sun and hitting Mercury.
When father-and-son backyard experiments have reached the point of sending smartphones up on weather balloons to snap pictures at the edge of space, DIY space enthusiasts will want to take things up a notch. A crowd-funded project to create a $5,000-
NASA gave SpaceX the go-ahead to launch its robotic Dragon spacecraft atop its Falcon 9 rocket to the space station on Feb. 7, so long as a series of final safety reviews, testing and verification is successfully completed.
Look in the western sky Saturday morning before dawn, and if the weather is clear and you're in the right place, you will be rewarded with the last lunar eclipse of 2011.
For just under an hour, the disk of the full moon will almost disappear, tur
The Opportunity rover, which landed on Mars 8 years ago, has discovered a thin, bright mineral vein along the rim of a huge crater. This mineral is almost certainly gypsum that was deposited by liquid water billions of years ago, researchers said.
Scientists have discovered the two biggest black holes ever observed, each with a mass billions of times greater than the Sun's, according to a study published Monday.
NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candid
Finally, Russia’s Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has called home. The European Space Agency has confirmed that Roscosmos’ marooned spacecraft--stuck in Earth orbit after a failed booster firing failed to set it on a course for Mars earlier this month--made
These days, every exoplanet discovery is still rich with excitement, as astronomers scrutinize each distant world and consider its possible characteristics. But this could get tedious pretty soon, as the number of confirmed exoplanets climbs into the
With strong evidence emerging that Europa—one of Jupiter's most interesting moons—may contain huge life-giving waters under its icy surface, the probabilities now increase that life exists on at least several worlds in our solar system.
The space telescope Kepler has identified more than 1,200 Earthlike planets to date. Some of them might support intelligent life. Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Edwin Turner of Princeton University believe the best wa
A solar power station in space measuring several kilometres in length may sound like something from a science fiction film, but the reality is that this idea could well be operational within less than 20 years.
The giant Jovian world, fifth planet from the sun, dominates all the worlds of our solar system. According to astronomers, Jupiter also acts like a massive vacuum cleaner sweeping up much of the debris that litters the outer system. Its powerful grav
The engineer told the Experimental Aviation Association he is tinkering with a design influenced to some extent by the lakes and rivers of Idaho, where he now lives after spending more than 40 years in the Mojave Desert.
Russia is set to launch a robotic spacecraft to the Mars moon Phobos today (Nov. 8), marking the nation's first attempt at an interplanetary mission in 15 years.
The Phobos-Grunt mission is slated to blast off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome
It seemed more like a bizarre reality TV show than high-tech international space travel experiment: Six men lived in cramped, windowless compartments for more than 17 months to simulate a mission to Mars.
A huge asteroid will pass closer to Earth than the moon Tuesday, giving scientists a rare chance for study without having to go through the time and expense of launching a probe, officials said.
Does Smokey Bear need a space helmet? NASA isn't headed back to the moon anytime soon, but some day space tourists may be on the way to the Apollo mission lunar landing sites.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A new game of "Solar System Monopoly" is under way, and the United States is losing, commercial space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow said today (Oct. 19).
Before the telescope was invented in 1608, our picture of the universe consisted of six planets, our moon, the sun and any stars we could see in the Milky Way galaxy. But as our light-gathering capabilities have grown, so too have the boundaries of t
JIUQUAN, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- China successfully launched its Shenzhou-8 spacecraft early Tuesday morning, marking a key step toward fulfilling the country's dreams of establishing its own space station.
The company has tapped U.S. Air Force pilot Keith Colmer as its newest pilot for SpaceShipTwo, a private spaceliner designed to launch on commercial flights into suborbital space.
The discovery marks a huge leap forward in our understanding of the Milky Way's shape. It may surprise you, but the beautiful symmetrical spiral shape we see in pictures is actually pure speculation.