Sleepy New Mexico town gears up for commercial launches as Spaceport America's moment of truth nears
After passing a sign reading, "Danger: falling aliens," New Mexico artist Roy Lohr and his dog, Yoda, lead visitors to the "spaceport" he has built in his backyard out of wine bottles and cement. It is no wonder the lanky 69-year-old embraces the real Spaceport ...
Astronauts plan to grow lettuce for rocket salad
Most people associate NASA with rocket science, but now the U.S. space agency has turned its attention to rocket salad. A portable greenhouse to grow lettuce was taken to the International Space Station (ISS) during last week's supply mission. Provided that the astronauts can cut ...
Scientists have for the first time measured the spin of a planet outside our solar system — a large gas planet located a relatively close 63 light-years from Earth. They determined that the planet, named Beta Pictoris b, spins faster than any in our solar ...
As club sandwiches go, this undoubtedly is the biggest one in the solar system. Scientists on Friday said that Jupiter's moon Ganymede may possess ice and liquid oceans stacked up in several layers much like the popular multilayered sandwich. They added that this arrangement may ...
Fierce solar blasts that could have badly damaged electrical grids and disabled satellites in space narrowly missed Earth in 2012, U.S. researchers said. The bursts would have wreaked havoc on the Earth's magnetic field, matching the severity of the 1859 Carrington Event, the largest solar ...
About 5 million years ago, an asteroid or comet slammed into Mars so hard that rocks and other debris launched into space. Some eventually landed on Earth, becoming the "shergottites," the biggest of three main types of meteorites from Mars. Now researchers say they have pinpointed ...
Israeli dishwasher-size moon lander looks to shatter space 'glass ceiling'
It is only the size of a dishwasher and weighs as much as a giant panda, but its inventors are hoping this spacecraft will go where no other Israeli vessel has gone before — to the moon. Working on a shoestring budget, the Israeli scientists ...
Sicilian amateur scientists have launched a model cannolo, a cream-stuffed pastry roll symbolic of the Italian island, into the stratosphere, capturing bizarre images of the dessert flying far above Earth last month. The "Sicilian Space Program," which cost roughly €350, had symbolic importance as well ...
Scientists have observed for the first time an asteroid breaking apart, crumbling into at least 10 pieces in a kind of slow-motion celestial train wreck. The rocky asteroid, named P/2013 R3, was one of the innumerable objects populating the crowded asteroid belt between the orbits ...
Budget limits trim NASA's plans for big projects
The Cassini spacecraft is in splendid shape as it circles Saturn. Conceived in the 1980s and launched in 1997, Cassini arrived at the gas-giant planet in 2004 and has continued to deliver stunning images of the jewel of the solar system. The unmanned probe scored ...
China completed the first soft landing on the moon's surface in 37 years Saturday, becoming only the third country to pull off the feat. State television showed scientists in white and pale blue coats applauding, shaking hands and congratulating each other after the craft, Chang'e-3, ...
The search for life in the solar system took a twist Thursday with the announcement that Europa, a moon of Jupiter first discovered by Galileo, shows signs of water geysers erupting from its south pole. This could be the best evidence yet that Europa has ...
