News

Aerospace

30 June 2009:  A new tool to visualize the past and future lunar eclipses. Lunar eclipses are well-documented throughout human history. Read more
 
29 June 2009:  The sun leaves Earth open to assaults from interstellar nasties, cosmic rays, in a way that most stars do not. Read more

26 June 2009:  Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators caught in the act. Cosmic rays from our galaxy are very efficiently accelerated in the remnants of exploded stars. Read more
 
26 June 2009:  Blasting the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan with X-rays can produce a base component of DNA, a new laboratory study suggests. Read more
 
25 June 2009:  The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. Read more
 
25 June 2009:  Water vapor jets that spew from the surface of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus are not really geysers from an underground ocean. Read more
 
25 June 2009:  Galaxies coming of age in cosmic blobs. Immense reservoirs of hydrogen gas -- which they named "blobs" – are discovered while astronomers conducting surveys of young distant galaxies. Read more
 
24 June 2009:  Galactic colonization limited by the inability to expand exponentially. The Fermi Paradox indicates that the existence of intelligent alien civilizations is an impossibility. Read more
 
24 June 2009:  The first detection of a magnetic field on the bright star Vega. Using the NARVAL spectropolarimeter of the Bernard-Lyot telescope on top of the Pic du Midi (France). Read more
 
23 June 2009:  A new lunar topography map with the highest resolution of the moon's rugged south polar region provides new information on some of our natural satellite's darkest inhabitants - permanently shadowed craters. Read more
 
22 June 2009:  Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope, obtained images of the spiral galaxy Messier 51 (M51). Read more
 
22 June 2009:  Astronomer uses the history of solar eclipse discoveries as well as current themes in the eclipse research in the modern era. Read more
 
19 June 2009:  A breakthrough that will help scientists unlock mysteries of the Sun and its impacts on Earth: an international team has created the first-ever comprehensive computer model of sunspots. Read more
 
19 June 2009:  Mystery of the missing sunspots: a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual. Read more
 
19 June 2009:  NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has made the first observations of very fast hydrogen atoms coming from the moon, following decades of speculation and searching for their existence. Read more
 
18 June 2009:  For the first time, direct evidence of lightning has been detected on Mars.  Researchers found signs of electrical discharges during dust storms on the Red Planet. Read more
 
18 June 2009:  An international team of researchers has found a planet around another star whose orbit is steeply tilted from the plane of the star's equator, a finding that contradicts some theories about how solar systems form. Read more
 
17 June 2009:  Astronomers report an in-depth study of multiple blasts of radiation from a rare object known as a soft gamma repeater, or SGR, by using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) satellites. Read more
 
17 June 2009:  Satellite observation of cloud temperatures may be able to accurately predict severe thunderstorms up to 45 minutes earlier than relying on traditional radar alone. Read more
 
16 June 2009:  A new type of reconfigurable space robot can perform diverse tasks by changing its configuration, such as lengthening and twisting its “arms,” in a much simpler and more compact way than previous reconfigurable robots. Read more
 
16 June 2009:  The interstellar stuff that became incorporated into the planets and life on Earth has younger cosmic roots than theories predict. Dying sun-like stars flung interstellar grains into space more than 4.5 billion years ago, before the birth of the solar system. Read more
 
16 June 2009:  Space geology: from the Moon to Mars. The only scientist and field geologist ever to visit the moon offers some pointers to those who will one day visit Mars. Read more
 
15 June 2009:  A hypothesis says life would double the future lifespan of the biosphere—while also increasing the chance that advanced life will be found elsewhere in the universe. Read more
 
15 June 2009:  Astronomers believe they have seen hints of the first planet to be spotted outside of our galaxy. Read more
 
12 June 2009:  Planet-forming disk discovered orbiting twin suns: A rotating molecular disk orbiting the young binary star system V4046 Sagittarii. Read more
 
11 June 2009:  Existence of collisional trajectories of Mercury, Mars and Venus with the Earth. Transfer of angular momentum from the giant planets that destabilizes all the terrestrial planets  3.34 Gyr from now, with possible collisions of Mercury, Mars or Venus with the Earth. Read more
 
11 June 2009:  Moon mission tackles water question. NASA orbiter will hunt for water ice that could be used as a resource by future astronauts. Read more
 
11 June 2009:  New calculations indicate that, with planets orbiting so close to a red dwarf star, tidal forces exerted on planets by the parent star's gravity could limit what is regarded as a star's habitable zone. Read more
 
11 June 2009:  Astronomers have at last uncovered newborn stars at the frenzied center of our Milky Way galaxy, by using the infrared vision of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Read more
 
11 June 2009:  An effective way is found to search the atmospheres of planets for signs of life, vastly improving our chances of finding alien life outside our solar system. Read more
 
11 June 2009:  The red supergiant star Betelgeuse, the bright reddish star in the constellation Orion, has steadily shrunk over the past 15 years. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  Astronomers have found that stars of a recently discovered type, dubbed ultracool subdwarfs, take some pretty wild rides as they orbit around the Milky Way, following paths that are very different from those of typical stars. One of them may actually be a visitor that originated in another galaxy. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  Astronomers have developed a new technique to determine the ages of millisecond pulsars, the fastest-spinning stars in the universe. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  A mathematician is studying new theories about why the universe is the way it is. To study new approaches to the quantum theory of gravity, it is hoped to uncover implications of these theories for the origin and the future of life. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  Astronomers have discovered new tidal debris stripped away from colliding galaxies. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  New computer modeling techniques are used to discover that the black hole at the heart of M87, the largest nearby giant galaxies, is 2-3 times more massive than previously thought. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  A new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a supernova remnant with a different look. This object, known as SNR 0104-72.3 (SNR 0104 for short), is in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  'Picosatellite' is to be launched from space shuttle. The goal of rendezvous and docking: 2 satellites, or spacecraft, meeting at a desired point in space starting from different locations (the rendezvous portion) and connecting to become a single vehicle (the docking sequence) - all without human control. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  The starless cloud Barnard 68 is predicted to collapse and give rise to a new star. Read more
 
10 June 2009:  It seems the particles neutrinos, meaning "little neutral ones", might stretch across billions of light years in the universe. Read more
 
9 June 2009:  By extending a common measurement technique, a new way is found to measure distances to objects 3 times farther away in outer space than previously possible. Read more
 
9 June 2009:  Researchers develop new tool to visualize past, future lunar eclipses. Read more
 
9 June 2009:  Network creates virtual super-telescope. Data are transferred in real time from telescopes around the world to a supercomputer in the Netherlands to create high-resolution images of distant objects in space. Read more
 
9 June 2009:  Since its launch in 2004, NASA's Swift has detected more than 430 gamma-ray bursts. Roughly half of them are "dark" bursts that emit little or no visible light. Read more
 
9 June 2009:  Scientists have developed a new cleaning protocol for space hardware, such as the scoops of Mars rovers, which could be used on future "Search for Life" missions on other planet. Read more
 
8 June 2009:  Some core-collapse supernovae are up to 100 times less energetic and luminous than usual. These low-power explosions normally show the presence of hydrogen gas, but a new event, supernova SN 2008ha, is the first dim supernova in which no hydrogen could be detected. Read more
 
8 June 2009:  The works of 3 astronomers are recognised in discovering one of the most important numbers in astronomy - the rate at which the universe is expanding. Read more
 
8 June 2009:  A wandering black hole may have torn apart a star to create a strange object that brightened mysteriously and then faded from view in 2006, a new study suggests. Read more
 
5 June 2009:  What if astronauts had been caught unprotected on the surface of the Moon when sunspot appeared and began to erupt? Read more
 
5 June 2009:  Stellar family in crowded, violent neighborhood proves to be surprisingly normal. The Arches Cluster is ten times heavier than typical young star clusters scattered throughout our Milky Way and is enriched with chemical elements heavier than helium. Read more
 
4 June 2009:  The X-shooter of ESO’s Very Large Telescope can record the entire spectrum of a celestial object in one shot — from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared. This unique new instrument will be particularly useful for the study of gamma-ray bursts. Read more
 
4 June 2009:  The clouds of Saturn's moon Titan form and move much like those on Earth, but in a much slower, more lingering fashion. Read more
 
4 June 2009:  Formic acid, a compound implicated in the origins of life, has been found at record levels on a meteorite that fell onto a frozen Canadian lake in 2000. Read more
 
3 June 2009:  NASA scientists find evidence for liquid water on a frozen early Mars. Read more
 
3 June 2009:  Magnetic tornadoes could liberate Mercury's tenuous atmosphere. It is hard for the planet, hot and weak in gravity, to hold on to its atmosphere which is extremely thin. Read more
 
3 June 2009:  Space headache to be established as a new secondary disorder: it is attributed to disorders of homeostasis, which is the maintenance of a constant internal environment within the body. Read more
 
2 June 2009:  Is dark-energy particle spotted? Reported 'chameleon' particle would change its mass to match its environs. Read more
 
2 June 2009:  Astrophysicists in UK have discovered that a mystery stellar explosion recorded in 2006 may have marked the unusual death of an equally unusually carbon-rich star. Read more
 
29 May 2009:  Galactic nuclei offer some indication of axionlike particles. From a cosmological point of view, axionlike particles are of interest because they could be connected to dark energy. Read more
 
29 May 2009:  A cosmic "ghost" is lurking around a distant supermassive black hole. This is the first detection of such a high-energy apparition, and scientists think it is evidence of a huge eruption produced by the black hole. Read more
 
29 May 2009:  The joint Japan-U.S. Suzaku mission is providing new insight into how assemblages of thousands of galaxies pull themselves together. For the first time, Suzaku has detected X-ray-emitting gas at a cluster's outskirts, where a billion-year plunge to the center begins. Read more
 
29 May 2009:  Astrometry -- a long-proposed tool for hunting planets has netted its first catch -- a Jupiter-like planet orbiting one of the smallest stars known. Read more
 
29 May 2009:  The Phantom Torso is an armless, legless, human-shaped torso, wrapped in a mummy's bandages. This mannequin is an intrepid space traveler, spent 4 months on the International Space Station -- for scientists to study how it endured space radiation. Read more
 
28 May 2009:  Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy. Read more
 
28 May 2009:  A new prediction for the next solar cycle states that Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots. Read more
 
28 May 2009:  A team of researchers in Canada has broken new ground in outer space by pinpointing the impact epicentre of an Earthbound space storm as it crashes into the atmosphere and giving an advance warning that it's on the way. Read more
 
28 May 2009:  The chance discovery of a rare radio supernova - an exploding star seen only at radio wavelengths and undetected by optical or X-ray telescopes - underscores the promise of new, more sensitive radio surveys to find supernovas hidden by gas and dust. Read more
 
27 May 2009:  Studying the 'mountains' and 'starquakes' that develop on neutron stars. The strength of the crust that forms on the outside of a neutron star could help to understand gravitational waves. Read more
 
27 May 2009:  Scientists develop new method to find alien oceans, Earth-like planets. Since the 1990s, we have found 300 planets orbiting their sun, nearly all of them gas giants like Jupiter. Read more
 
27 May 2009:  ESA's gravity mission GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) has achieved a first in the history of satellite technology. The sophisticated electric propulsion system has shown that it is able to keep the satellite completely free from drag. Read more
 
27 May 2009:  A space storm has been observed exploding from a central point in Earth's upper atmosphere for the first time. Read more
 
25 May 2009:  Researchers have built the novel LIDAR ("light detection and ranging") system, a laser ranging system that can pinpoint multiple objects with nanometer precision over distances up to 100 kilometers. It can be used to maintain networks of satellites, and create a giant space-based platform to search for new planets. Read more
 
25 May 2009:  A new technique for measuring the distances to supernovae more accurately than ever before has been developed. It aims to improve understanding of Dark Energy. Read more
  
22 May 2009:  One of NASA's two Mars rovers has recorded a compelling saga of environmental changes that occurred over billions of years at a Martian crater. Read more
 
22 May 2009:  The cosmos is 'recycling' a star. For the first time, researchers have observed a singular cosmic act of rebirth: the transformation of an ordinary, slow-rotating pulsar into a superfast millisecond pulsar with an almost infinitely extended lifespan. Read more
 
22 May 2009:  A new study shows that a rotating space elevator could provide a mechanism for objects to slide up the elevator cable into outer space. The space elevator could launch satellites and spacecraft with humans, and even be used to host space stations and research posts. Read more
 
22 May 2009:  A giant balloon taller than a football field is now flying at the edge of space to collect data on cosmic rays -- the most super-charged particles in the universe. Read more
 
21 May 2009:  Star-forming backbone of a massive structure -- a set of ultra-massive galaxies -- in the early universe is photographed by using a special camera known as AzTEC. Read more
 
21 May 2009:  The giant galaxy Messier 87 is finally sized up, a diameter of about a million light-years, significantly smaller than expected. Read more
 
20 May 2009:  Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) captures sun's magnetic field. BBSO, a new 1.6-meter clear aperture solar telescope—the largest of its kind in the world—is said to be the pathfinder for all future. Read more
 
19 May 2009:  A new technique that establishes the intrinsic brightness of Type Ia supernovae more accurately than ever before. These exploding stars are the best standard candles for measuring cosmic distances, the tools that made the discovery of dark energy possible. Read more
 
18 May 2009:  QUIET to deploy new gravity-wave probe. The cosmo once expanded faster than the speed of light. QUIET (Q/U Imaging ExperimenT; the Q and U stand for radiation parameters called Stokes parameters). Read more
 
18 May 2009:  The Whole Earth Telescope (WET), a worldwide network of observatories, is synchronizing its lenses to provide round-the-clock coverage of a cooling star. Read more
 
15 May 2009:  A supermassive black hole may be responsible for the glowing appearance of galaxy 3C 305, located about 600 million light years away in the constellation Draco. Read more
 
14 May 2009:  Erupting gas may cause lunar flashes. Reports of ephemeral flashes of light seen on the Moon could be due to the explosive discharge of gas beneath its surface. Read more
 
14 May 2009:  A new explanation for both where and how tiny silicate crystals in comets may have been created. Read more
 
13 May 2009:  Life in the universe? Almost certainly. Intelligence? Maybe not. Other planets may be dominated by microbes or other nonspeaking creatures. According to the Drake equation which provides a means for calculating the number of intelligent civilizations that it is possible for humans to make contact with… Read more
 
12 May 2009:  University students have developed a "blanket" of sorts that covers lunar outposts - the astronauts' living quarters - to provide astronauts protection against radiation while also generating and storing power. Read more
 
12 May 2009:  Supercooled and supersized technologies aboard Herschel and Planck. Read more
 
12 May 2009:  Manufacturing and measuring methods have been developed for testing the equivalence principle of inert and heavy mass, in space. Read more
 
11 May 2009:  Sun's behavior flummoxes solar scientists. Read more
 
11 May 2009:  Physicists have new idea that could make 'Star Trek' warp speed. Read more
 
11 May 2009:  Imagine a time when the entire universe froze -- happened about 11.5 billion years ago. New dark energy model includes cosmological phase transition. Read more
 
8 May 2009:  NASA would send a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to help astronauts survive on Moon's forbidding frontier. Read more
 
8 May 2009:  Scientists using NASA's fleet of THEMIS spacecraft have discovered how radio waves produced by electrons – ‘singing’ electrons -- injected into Earth's near-space environment both generate and remove high-speed "killer" electrons. Read more
 
8 May 2009:  Based on Hubble Space Telescope observation, new value for the universe's present expansion rate, known as the Hubble constant, is 74.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec (error margin of ± 3.6). Read more
 
8 May 2009:  Research has shown that bacterial proteins called phytochromes can be engineered into infrared-fluorescent proteins (IFPs). Because the wavelength of IFPs is able to penetrate tissue, these proteins are suitable for whole-body imaging in small animals. Read more
 
8 May 2009:  Researchers have created an "astro-comb" to help astronomers detect lighter planets, more like Earth. Read more
 
7 May 2009:  A theoretical physicist found that the crusts of neutron stars are 10 billion times stronger than steel. Read more
 
7 May 2009:  First 2 ALMA telescope antennas linked. It is a part of ALMA's array of 66 giant 12-metre and 7-metre diameter antennas. Mars is chosen for observation. Read more
 
6 May 2009:  Our galactic neighborhood seems to be producing large numbers of high-energy electrons, according to new data gathered by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Read more
 
6 May 2009:  A 25-year old astronomical mystery has been solved: Most of the diffuse X-ray emissions in the Milky Way do not originate from one single source but from so-called white dwarfs and from stars with active outer gas layers. Read more
 
6 May 2009:  Study plunges standard Theory of Cosmology into Crisis. As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the “dark matter” to explain otherwise inexplicable observations, people have been questioning the existence of dark matter. Read more
 
6 May 2009:  Millions of microbe astronauts will travel into space aboard a NASA satellite. These germs are part of a NASA mission to study how floating in space alters a medication's effectiveness. Read more
 
5 May 2009:  Fermi scientists revealed new details about high-energy particles implicated in a nearby cosmic mystery. Read more
 
4 May 2009:  In November 2008, data from a balloon-borne particle detector circling the South Pole revealed a dramatic excess of high-energy particles from space--a possible sign of dark matter. Read more
 
4 May 2009:  A previously unknown, large impact basin on Mercury -- now named Rembrandt  -- has been discovered in October 2008. It is measured more than 700 kilometers (430 miles) in diameter. Read more
 
4 May 2009:  Why Are Galaxies So Smooth? How young stars that form clustered together in dense clouds of dust and gas disperse to form the large, smooth distribution seen. Read more
 
1 May 2009:  NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft detected magnesium in flyby of Mercury. Read more
 
1 May 2009:  Researchers use multispectral images to reveal origin and evolution of Mercury which remains the least understood of the 4 terrestrial planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Read more
 
1 May 2009:  Stellar explosions called novæ are caused by nuclear reactions between the star's atoms. Astrophysicists study the radiation emitted by certain types of atom, and in particular the fluorine-18 produced by these reactions. Read more
 
1 May 2009:  Starbursts, intense regions of star formation, sweep across a small galaxy and last 100 times longer than astronomers thought. The longer duration may affect how dwarf galaxies change over time, and therefore may shed light on galaxy evolution. Read more

30 April 2009:  New calculations suggest that hundreds of massive black holes, left over from the galaxy-building days of the early universe, may wander the Milky Way. Read more
 
30 April 2009:  An image of a region near the center of our Galaxy has resolved a long-standing mystery about an X-ray glow along the plane of the Galaxy. Read more
 
30 April 2009:  Extreme solar activity drastically compresses the magnetosphere and modifies the composition of ions in near-Earth space. Scientists are now looking to model how these changes affect orbiting satellites, including the GPS system. Read more
 
29 April 2009:  NASA is preparing to fly a small satellite about the size of a loaf of bread that could help scientists better understand how effectively antifungal drugs work in space. Read more
 
28 April 2009:  During the last two decades, astronomers have found hundreds of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. Gravitational forces might pull a planet into its parent star – now with the first evidence. Read more
 
28 April 2009:  Astronomers have spotted the most distant object yet confirmed in the universe – a self-destructing star that exploded 13.1 billion light years from Earth, also a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the brightest type of stellar explosion. Read more
 
27 April 2009:  A team of planetary scientists working on the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission has discovered tiny, charged icy particles in the plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  The high speed of stars and apparent presence of ‘dark matter’ in the satellite galaxies that orbit our Milky Way Galaxy presents a direct challenge to Newton’s theory of gravitation. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  Using the NASA Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite, a team of astronomers have discovered an object predicted, but never seen before – a ‘jet trail’ nebula. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  Earth-bound tornadoes are puny compared to "space tornadoes," which span a volume as large as Earth and produce electrical currents exceeding 100,000 amperes. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  A process called ‘dark gulping’ may solve the mystery of the how supermassive black holes were able to form when the Universe was less than a billion years old. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  A team of Canadian astronomers have found an interesting shadow cast by a forming star system. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  Research by astronomers suggests that shadows hold the key to how giant star-forming structures like the famous "Pillars of Creation" take shape. Read more
 
24 April 2009:  24 unusual stars, 18 of them newly discovered, have been observed in new Hubble telescope images. The stars are white dwarfs made of helium. This is the first extensive sequence of helium-core white dwarfs to be observed in a globular cluster, a dense swarm of some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. Read more
 
23 April 2009:  Astronomers has used the NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to look deep into an active galaxy's gamma-ray emissions and its powerful radio-emitting jets. Read more
 
23 April 2009:  We may be able to find extraterrestrial life even before it leaves its home planet—by looking for left- (or right-) handed light. The technique developed for detecting life elsewhere in the universe will not spot aliens directly. Read more 
 
23 April 2009:  Most distant detection of water in the Universe -- water vapour contained in a jet ejected from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy, named MG J0414+0534. Read more
 
23 April 2009:  A team of astronomers have discovered a mysterious, giant object that existed when the universe was only 800 million years old. Dubbed an extended "Lyman-Alpha blob," it is a huge body of gas. Read more
 
23 April 2009:  Solar wind tans young asteroids. The surfaces of asteroid age and redden much faster than previously thought -- in less than a million years, the blink of an eye for an asteroid. Read more
 
23 April 2009:  Researchers have used a mathematical model to get a clearer picture of the galaxy's youngest supernova remnant by correcting for the distortions caused by cosmic dust. Their new data provides evidence that this remnant is from a type Ia supernova - the explosion of a white dwarf star. Read more
 
23 April 2009:  A survey by the Chandra X-ray observatory has revealed, for the first time, the effects of a shock wave blasted through a galaxy by powerful jets of plasma emanating from a supermassive black hole at the galactic core. The observations of Centaurus A, the nearest galaxy that contains these jets… Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Some of the most primitive matter is found containing abundant interstellar material analysed to date amongst dust particles collected from the upper atmosphere by NASA aircraft. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Exoplanet researchers have discovered the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, “e”, in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Within 10 years, we'll find life outside Earth -- that's the prediction of Peter Smith, the University of Arizona professor who led NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Scientists from Germany and USA have detected 2 of the most complex molecules yet discovered in interstellar space: ethyl formate and n-propyl cyanide. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Astrobiology: the search for unusual alien life on Earth and life that can survive on Mars. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Hubble has an image of a trio of galaxies, called Arp 194, looking as if the galaxies has sprung a leak. The bright blue streamer is really a stretched spiral arm full of newborn blue stars. This typically happens when two galaxies interact and gravitationally tug at each other gravitationally. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  Giant exoplanets orbiting very close to their stars could lose a quarter of their mass during their lifetime. If the orbit is closer than 2% of an Astronomical Unit (AU), the distance between the Earth and the Sun, the planet may lose their atmospheres completely, leaving just their core. Read more
 
22 April 2009:  World's researchers prepare for the near-Earth flyby of asteroid Apophis in 2029. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  At least 1 in 100 white dwarf stars show evidence of orbiting asteroids and rocky planets, suggesting these objects once hosted solar systems similar to our own. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  One of the coolest sub-stellar bodies ever found outside our own solar system, orbiting the red dwarf star Wolf 940, some 40 light years from Earth. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  Dark energy and dark matter together constitute more than 95 percent of the energy content of the present Universe. New gravitational states could account for dark matter with R2 gravity. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  Solar sigmoids explained. 'Sigmoids' are S-shaped structures found in the outer atmosphere of the Sun (the corona), seen with X-ray telescopes and thought to be a crucial part of explosive events like solar flares. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  The most wide-ranging census ever produced of dynamical star formation in and around the well-known Great Nebula of Orion. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  High Accuracy Radial-velocity Planet Search - New Earths Facility (HARPS-NEF) to comb Kepler targets for new Earths. Read more
 
21 April 2009:  Scientists are using the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to monitor a new dust storm that has erupted on the Red Planet. Read more
 
20 April 2009:  The identification of meteorites has never been easy. With the use of computers, researchers can now find out what part of the solar system the asteroid came from. Read more
 
20 April 2009:  In a faraway corner of the universe, a crash of cosmic proportions is under way, cramming more than 1000 galaxies into a space normally reserved for a handful. Read more
 
20 April 2009:  40 years after Apollo’s moon mission, a scientist has figured out why moon dust is so sticky, ruining scientific equipment and endangering astronauts' health. Read more
 
17 April 2009:  Collision debris increases risk to Earth-observing satellites. European study finds wreckage from recent collision in the spaceways. Read more
 
17 April 2009:  Astronomers find most crowded collision of galaxy clusters from 3 different telescopes. Read more
 
17 April 2009:  A team of geochemists can show an alternative origin for an unusual sulfur isotope  composition that may point to an early, oxygen-rich atmosphere on Earth. Read more
 
17 April 2009:  NASA's Kepler mission has taken its first images of the star-rich sky where it will soon begin hunting for planets like Earth. Read more
 
17 April 2009:  NASA to improve navigation systems to accurately track and direct its crew members and exploration vehicles on the Moon. Read more
 
17 April 2009:  How to deflect asteroids and save the Earth. Aerospace engineering: a way to effectively divert asteroids by attaching a long tether and ballast to the incoming object .Read more
 
17 April 2009:  Titanium reveals explosive origins of the solar system. Read more
 
15 April 2009:  Physicists discovered a universal principle that unites the curious interplay of light and shadow on the surface of your morning coffee with the way gravity magnifies and distorts light from distant galaxies. Read more
 
15 April 2009:  Twin NASA spacecraft have provided scientists with their first view of the speed, trajectory, and 3D shape of powerful explosions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. Read more
 
14 April 2009:  Blasting for Ice on Mars. The Phoenix lander has given scientists a close look at the ice in one spot high in the martian arctic, but researchers have also been surveying fresh craters across the planet for signs of frozen water. Read more
 
14 April 2009:  A team of astronomers has developed a new model which explains the formation of the most youthful type Ia supernovae. Read more
 
14 April 2009:  NASA scientists suggests the ozone layer of the future is unlikely to look much like the past because greenhouse gases are changing the dynamics of the atmosphere. Read more
 
14 April 2009:  Scientists Pinpoint The 'Edge Of Space' -- the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space. Read more
 
9 April 2009:  After 2 years spent analyzing data from the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope (BLAST) project, an international group of astronomers and astrophysicists from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. reveals that half of the starlight of the Universe comes from young, star-forming galaxies several billion light years away. Read more
 
8 April 2009:  A micrometeorite found in Antarctica is challenging ideas about how planets can form. the sample, known as MM40, has a chemical composition unlike any other fragment of fallen space rock. Read more
 
8 April 2009:  A new study from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope hints that planets around stars cooler than our sun might possess a different mix of potentially life-forming, or "prebiotic," chemicals. Read more
 
8 April 2009:  Mathematicians have made a discovery which could lead to a better understanding of why huge eruptions occur in space. New models of small structures in space plasmas have been found, called "current sheets", which could help explain how explosions in the solar atmosphere happen. Read more
 
8 April 2009:  For the first time, the difference in reflection of light from the Earth's land masses and oceans can be seen on the dark side of the moon, a phenomenon known as earthshine. Read more
 
7 April 2009:  Light reflected by clouds can brighten air kilometres away. A study looking at why clouds make the air near them glow more brightly suggests climate models may need to be revised. Read more
 
7 April 2009:  Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have a subterranean ocean of hydrocarbons and some topsy-turvy topography in which the summits of its mountains lie lower than its average surface elevation. Read more

6 April 2009:  Europe's Integral satellite has captured one of the brightest gamma-ray bursts ever seen. Read more
 
6 April 2009:  The House on the Moon is a project that aims to put a little read cottage on the moon. A robot will roll out the multi-artist Mikael Genberg’s little cabin from the space rocket, find a stable vacant lot, and erect the planet’s first building. Read more
 
6 April 2009:  A small, dense object only 12 miles in diameter is an X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. A very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509, is a rapidly spinning neutron star which resembles a large cosmic hand. Read more
 
6 April 2009:  New cosmic map reveals colossal structures. Enormous cosmic voids and giant concentrations of matter have been observed in a new galaxy survey, one of the biggest completed so far. Read more
 
3 April 2009:  With its giant rocky core and thick envelope of gas, the planet HD 149026b appears to break the rules of solar system evolution. Two researchers now explained how this "hot Saturn" came about. Read more
 
3 April 2009:  Heavyweight galaxies puzzle astronomers. These large galaxies are some two thirds of the way back in time to the big bang. This surprising find casts doubt on theories of how the biggest galaxies form. Read more
 
3 April 2009:  A team of astronomers used the Very Large telescope Interferometer (VLTI) to obtain the sharpest ever image of the young double star Theta 1 Ori C in the Orion Trapezium Cluster, the most massive star in the nearest high-mass star-forming region. Read more
 
3 April 2009:  Saturn's moon Titan is surprisingly non-spherical, suggesting it may hide vast reserves of liquid methane beneath its surface. Read more
 
2 April 2009:  Research is helping to shed light on neutron stars, city-sized globs of ultra-dense matter that occasionally collapse into black holes. Read more 
 
2 April 2009:  A powerful, newly refined image-processing technique may allow astronomers to discover extrasolar planets that are possibly lurking in over a decade's worth of Hubble Space Telescope archival data. Read more
 
2 April 2009:  Sun Plunges into the Quietest Solar Minimum in a Century. In 2008, there were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). Read more
 
2 April 2009:  European astronomers said on 1 April 2009 that an anomalous energy signal detected by an orbiting satellite could be a telltale of the enigmatic substance known as dark matter. Read more
 
1 April 2009:  Mars has a spring clear-out. NASA's Mars Orbiter captured the erosion of the planet's surface as its seasonal cap of carbon dioxide ice turns into vapour. Read more
 
1 April 2009:  Rocket launches may need regulation to prevent damage to Earth's stratospheric ozone layer in the decades to come. Read more
 
1 April 2009:  For the first time, scientists are studying recovered celestial meteorites that have a definitive link with an asteroid from space: an SUV-sized asteroid, called 2008 TC3,  exploded over the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan on Oct. 7, 2008. Read more
 
1 April 2009:  The first clear detection of signatures long sought in the spectra of X-ray astronomical source -- EXAFS (Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure) -- were observed with an X-ray. Read more
 
1 April 2009:  The US has finished constructing a huge physics experiment aimed at recreating conditions at the heart of our Sun. Read more
 
31 March 2009:  Methane-producing mineral discovered on Mars. But it may not explain the presence of the gas on the Red Planet. Read more
 
31 March 2009:  Why is there more matter than antimatter in the natural World. The imbalance, called the CP violation… Read more
 
31 March 2009:  The mysterious Tunguska blast in 1908 that flattened millions of trees in Siberia was due to the explosion of a hydrogen-saturated part of a comet in Earth's atmosphere. Read more
 
31 March 2009:  Observations in Bermuda and the Caribbean in the 1990s noted that hurricanes can trigger enhanced CO2 release from the ocean. A new study shows that hurricanes are not likely to disrupt ocean carbon balance. Read more
 
31 March 2009:  The first sighting of another solar system was announced in 1992, but a system found more recently may have shown its presence a decade earlier. Read more
 
30 March 2009:  6 volunteers from Europe and Russia will allow themselves to be locked up in a capsule in Moscow for over 3 months to simulate the conditions for an eventual manned mission to Mars. Read more
 
27 March 2009:  Possible Fifth Force Would Make Direct Detection of Dark Matter Unlikely. Studies have shown that, if a long-range fifth force does exist, it could have surprising effects on the universe’s structure formation. Read more
 
27 March 2009:  Spanish and French astrophysicists have identified a band in the infrared range that serves to track the presence of organic material rich in oxygen and nitrogen in the interstellar dust grains. The presence of aminoacids and other substances in space could be confirmed if these precursors to life be detected by any telescope. Read more
 
27 March 2009:  Around the World in 80 Telescopes. Palomar Observatory is last stop on 24-hour webcast linking telescopes around the globe and in space. Read more
 
27 March 2009:  Scientists say the possible discovery of mud volcanoes on Mars could boost the search for the planet's past life. Read more
 
26 March 2009:  Erratic black holes regulate their growth. New results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have made a major advance in explaining how a special class of black holes may shut off the high-speed jets they produce. These black holes have a mechanism for regulating the rate at which they grow. Read more
 
26 March 2009:  The car-sized asteroid that exploded above the Nubian Desert last October (2009) was the first instance of an asteroid spotted in space before falling to Earth. Read more
 
26 March 2009:  Spacetime May Have Fractal Properties on a Quantum Scale. For instance, string theory predicts the existence of extra dimensions more than 6. As physicists often explain, it’s impossible to visualize these extra dimensions. Read more
 
26 March 2009:  A scientist has expanded the Hubble Space Telescope's capability without the need for new instruments. Read more
 
26 March 2009:  New images from the HiRISE experiment detail patterns of dust carried by gas from beneath the seasonal ice cap. Read more
 
25 March 2009:  Einstein@Home, based at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee (UWM) and the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) in Germany, is one of the world's largest public volunteer distributed computing projects. More than 200,000 people have signed up to search gravitational wave data for signals from unknown pulsars. Read more
 
25 March 2009:  Movies and images of Saturn's moon Titan provide a bird's-eye view of the moon's Earth-like landscapes. Read more
 
25 March 2009:  Final rocket launches, measures aurora movement. Read more
 
24 March 2009:  By simulating spaceflight conditions through the use of long-duration bedrest, researchers have found -- for the first time -- a way to prevent bone loss in a specific region of the hip. Read more
 
24 March 2009:  On 19 March 2009, astronauts onboard the International Space Station checked themselves for microbes before stepping outside on a space walk. It was a first-ever test of planetary protection technology that, one day, could keep humans from contaminating the sands of Mars. Read more
 
24 March 2009:  Scientists managed to observe a super-sized supernova explosion from start to finish, including the black hole ending. Read more
 
24 March 2009:  New sun-watching instrument to monitor sunlight fluctuations. During the Maunder Minimum, a period of diminished solar activity between 1645 and 1715, Earth experienced a bitter cold period known as the "Little Ice Age." Read more
 
23 March 2009:  Researchers reveal why Sun's atmosphere is hotter than its surface. They discovered that waves of magnetic plasma, initiated in large 'bright point' structures on the Sun, are energetic enough to heat the corona. Read more
 
23 March 2009:  Finding Twin Earths Is Harder Than Thought. NASA's Kepler spacecraft just launched to find such worlds. Read more
 
23 March 2009:  An imaging coronal spectrograph called SPICE (Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment) to explore the center of the solar system. The Solar Orbiter will be positioned at about one-fourth the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Read more
 
20 March 2009:  Mars Express has uncovered geological evidence suggesting that some depositional process, revealed by erosion, has been at work on large scales in the equatorial regions of the planet. Read more 
 
20 March 2009:  The origin of supernovae confirmed. 2 dying red supergiant stars produced supernovae. Read more
 
20 March 2009:  After liftoff 17 March, ESA's GOCE spacecraft is performing very well, having achieved an extremely accurate injection altitude. The Mission Control Team is now working round-the-clock shifts to implement a series of critical check-out procedures. Read more
 
19 March 2009:  3 new species of bacteria, which are not found on Earth and which are highly resistant to ultra-violet radiation, have been discovered in the upper stratosphere by Indian scientists. Read more
 
19 March 2009:  Tree-eating bugs seen by satellite as they denude invasive tamarisk trees In Southwest U.S. Read more
 
19 March 2009:  Astrophysicists have uncovered surprising changes in radiation emitted by an active galaxy, from the first-ever simultaneous observations with optical, X-ray and new-generation gamma-ray telescopes. Read more
 
19 March 2009:  Faster-than-light particles, or "tachyons", may be fundamentally impossible. Read more
 
18 March 2009:  Salty, liquid water has been detected on a leg of the Mars Phoenix Lander and therefore could be present at other locations on the planet. Read more
 
18 March 2009:  Stephen Hawking's Lecture: Black Holes are no longer eternal prisons. Read more
 
18 March 2009:  Study on free-space optical communication shows experimental evidence of a unique atmospheric effect -- "scavenging," where the composition of fog changes with respect to Quantum cascade laser (QCL). Read more
 
18 March 2009:  On 24 February 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing: the white icy moons Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Read more
 
17 March 2009:  Lighter Higgs makes particle hunt harder. Longer search promised after physicists exclude heavy masses for the 'God particle'. Read more
 
17 March 2009:  A rare view of an imminent collision between the cores of two merging galaxies, each powered by a black hole with millions of times the mass of the sun. Read more
 
17 March 2009:  The ESO Very Large Telescope has taken the best image ever of a strange and chaotic duo of interwoven galaxies. The images also contain some surprises -- interlopers both far and near. Read more
 
17 March 2009:  The newest generation of compact research freezers is performing well in space and have already boosted the scientific capacity of the International Space Station (ISS). Read more
 
17 March 2009:  Watery asteroids may explain why life is 'left-handed'. Read more
 
13 March 2009:  Hubble provides new evidence for dark matter around small galaxies. Peering into the Perseus galaxy cluster, Hubble discovered a large population of small galaxies that have remained intact. Read more
 
13 March 2009:  Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have found evidence suggesting that stars rich in carbon complex molecules may form at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Read more
 
13 March 2009:   “Hair” of. Medusa galaxy (also known as NGC 4194) is actually a tidal tail formed by a collision between galaxies. The bright X-ray source found towards the left side of Medusa's hair is a black hole. Read more
 
12 March 2009:  Images from Mars lander show liquid water. Droplets seen on Phoenix's leg were from liquid water that splashed during landing. Read more
 
12 March 2009:  Fermi telescope reveals best-ever view of the gamma-ray sky. Combining nearly 3 months of data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, there is an unprecedented look at the high-energy cosmos. Read more
 
12 March 2009:  A 3-D view of remote galaxies. Read more
 
11 March 2009:  Cosmic strings could solve positron mystery. Collapsing defects in the Universe's structure may generate antimatter excess. Read more
 
11 March 2009:  ESA is preparing to test the performance of the smallest yet most precisely controllable engine ever built for space, sensitive enough to counteract the force of incoming sunshine. Read more
 
11 March 2009:  New images from 2 observations of the Martian moon Deimos and more than 600 observations of Mars, acquired by the high-resolution camera (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, became available. Read more
 
10 March 2009:  Fermilab collider experiments discover rare single top quark. The discovery confirms important parameters of particle physics, including the total number of quarks, and has significance for the ongoing search for the Higgs particle. Read more 
 
10 March 2009:  ESA is about to launch the most sophisticated of Earth Observation satellites -- GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) -- to investigate the Earth’s gravitational field with unprecedented resolution and accuracy. Read more
 
9 March 2009:  Satellites orbiting the Earth must occasionally be nudged to stay on the correct path. MIT scientists are developing a new rocket that could make this and other spacecraft maneuvers much less costly. Read more
 
9 March 2009:  NASA has successfully launched its first planet-hunting telescope, Kepler. Read more

9 March 2009:  Japan is considering putting a robot on the moon by 2020 and an astronaut by 2030, amid fears that she will be left behind in Asia’s space race. Read more

9 March 2009:  The 4 giant "Galilean" moons orbiting Jupiter are the last survivors of at least five generations of moons that once circled the gas giant. Read more
 
9 March 2009:  What challenges will face future travellers to Mars? Living in isolation for months. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  Astrophysics: Capturing black-hole pairs. A large survey of galaxies has finally netted two black holes in a tight pairing. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  NASA's Kepler mission is the best shot yet at detecting an Earth-sized planet elsewhere in the Galaxy. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  The Landsat 5 satellite keeps on observing, orbit after orbit around the Earth for 25 year. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  Mountain on Mars may answer big question. The Martian volcano Olympus Mons is about 3 times the height of Mount Everest. It is where astronomers are looking at whether the Red Planet ever had - or still supports – life. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter plans a procedure next week to check status of backup system, to address a long-known, potential vulnerability of accumulated memory corruption. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  'Nanostitching' could strengthen airplane skins by using carbon nanotubes only billionths of a meter thick to stitch together aerospace materials which are some 10 times stronger at a nominal increase in cost. Read more
 
5 March 2009:  The feasibility of using an instrument - called a forward looking interferometer - to detect several of the invisible hazards during aircraft takeoff, cruise and landing. Read more
 
4 March 2009:  An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on 2 March 2009. Read more
 
4 March 2009:  About 100 million light-years away, in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish), three galaxies are playing a game of gravitational give-and-take that might ultimately lead to their merger into one enormous entity. Read more
 
4 March 2009:  NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found within Saturn's G ring an embedded moonlet that appears as a faint, moving pinprick of light. Scientists believe it is a main source of the G ring and its single ring arc. Read more
 
4 March 2009:  Ancient supernovae may be recorded in Antarctic ice. A newly examined ice core shows what may be the chemical traces of supernovae that exploded a thousand years ago. Read more
 
3 March 2009:  UK astronomers, using a telescope aboard the NASA Swift Satellite, have captured information from the early stages of a gamma ray burst - the most violent and luminous explosions occurring in the Universe since the Big Bang. Read more 
 
3 March 2009:  The lower atmosphere of Pluto revealed. “With lots of methane in the atmosphere, it becomes clear why Pluto's atmosphere is so warm.” Read more
 
3 March 2009:  To mark UNESCO's International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), 6 leading astronomers from the UK, the US, Europe and Asia write about the biggest challenges and opportunities to come. Read more
 
2 March 2009:  China will launch a space module next year and carry out the nation's first space docking in 2011 as a step towards its goal of building a space station. Read more
 
2 March 2009:  With a new 3D-model for energy simulation, scientists are studying the 'physical mystery' of the Voyager. Over 30 years ago the spacecraft detected particles in solar wind which were 'hotter' than they should have been. Read more
 
2 March 2009:  A laser facility, built to provide fusion data for nuclear weapons simulations, will soon be used to probe the secrets of extrasolar planets. Read more
 
27 February 2009:  The oldest isolated pulsar ever detected in X-rays has been found with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This very old and exotic object turns out to be surprisingly active. Read more
 
27 February 2009:  For the first time, a spacecraft from Earth has captured hi-resolution images of a solar eclipse while orbiting another world. Read more
 
26 February 2009:  A research team finds new evidence for the production of copious quantities of dust in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, the remains of a star that exploded about 300 years ago. Read more
 
26 February 2009:  Small robots the size of riding mowers could prepare a safe landing site for NASA's Moon outpost. Read more
 
26 February 2009:  The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is on track to be finished as planned in 2011. Read more
 
26 February 2009:  Using data from the satellite-based MIPAS and GOME-2 instruments, scientists have for the first time detected important bromine species in the atmosphere. It helps to understand sources of ozone-depleting species and to improve simulations of stratospheric ozone chemistry. Read more
 
26 February 2009:  In our solar system, the patterns of missing asteroids are like the footprints of wandering giant planets preserved in the asteroid belt. Read more
 
25 February 2009:  Most detailed lunar map suggests little water inside Moon, and revealed never-before-seen craters at the lunar poles. Read more
 
25 February 2009:  How a cometary boulder, possibly originated from a comet which broke up nearly 90 years ago, crashed down through the Earth’s atmosphere and lit up the Spanish Sky. Read more
 
25 February 2009:  ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has observed an eerie glow in the night-time atmosphere of Venus. This infrared light comes from nitric oxide. Read more
 
25 February 2009:  Satellites orbiting the Earth must occasionally be nudged to stay on the correct path. The new system, called the Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster… Read more
 
24 February 2009:  The rotating black hole has been described as one of nature's most perfect objects. As described by the Kerr solution of Einstein's gravitational field equations, its spacetime geometry is completely characterized by only two numbers — mass and spin. Read more
 
24 February 2009:  New rocket aims for cheaper nudges in space: Plasma thruster is small, runs on inexpensive gases. Read more
 
24 February 2009:  Thunderstorms are the catalyst for a newly discovered natural phenomenon "sprites." Scientists are studying the phenomenon, such as "winter sprites" ― those that appear only in the northern hemisphere's winter months. Read more
 
23 February 2009:  Astronomers are claiming the detection via x-rays of a chunk of the universe's ordinary matter. Unlike the famous "dark matter" whose gravity is thought to hold the galaxies together, this more mundane form of missing matter is the stuff of normal atoms. Read more
 
23 February 2009:  Data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) suggest the discovery of ancient springs in the Vernal Crater, sites where life forms may have evolved on Mars. Read more
 
23 February 2009:  Lulin, a ‘green comet’ is fast approaching the Earth - reaching its nearest point to us on February 24, 2009. The comet gains its green colour from poisonous cyanogen and diatomic carbon gases in its atmosphere. Read more
 
23 February 2009:  A Russian scientist has said that a mosquito had managed to survive in the outer space for 18 months. The mosquito did not get any food and was subjected to extreme temperatures ranging from minus 150 degrees Celsius in the shade to plus 60 degrees in the sunlight. Read more
 
23 February 2009:  NASA begins testing elements of a power system that is a potential candidate to provide the energy needed to support a human outpost on the moon. Read more
 
23 February 2009:  A new  kind of star may be lurking in the debris from a nearby supernova explosion. If confirmed, the "quark star" could offer fresh insights into the earliest moments of the universe. Read more
 
20 February 2009:  Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope sees most extreme gamma-ray blast ever, from energies ranging from 3,000 to more than 5 billion times that of visible light. Read more
 
20 February 2009:  4 NASA rockets were launched from Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska, on the morning of Feb. 18, 2009. The rockets carried payloads that emitted glowing vapor trails that help scientists study turbulence in the upper atmosphere. Read more
 
19 February 2009:  Kaputnik chaos could kill Hubble. Worst-ever orbital collision leads to calls for tighter regulation. Read more
 
19 February 2009:  Sweet potato grows well aboard space shuttle Columbia. Read more

 19 February 2009:  Researchers determined huge pressures that melt diamond on planet Neptune. Read more

19 February 2009:  New stars from within a cloud of primordial gas surprise astronomers. This previously unknown mode of galaxy formation. The cloud is Leo Ring… Read more
 
19 February 2009:  A team of French astronomers has captured one of the sharpest color images ever made of the star T Leporis. The image was taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Read more
 
19 February 2009:  NASA and ESA prioritize outer planet missions: first to study Jupiter and its four largest moons, and another to visit Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and Enceladus. Read more
 
18 February 2009:  Backward green comet makes one-time only visit. It takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system, and is zipping by Earth this month. Read more
 
18 February 2009:  The superior computing power of the Cray XT3 system allow astronomers to input the extensive calculations necessary to incorporate black hole physics into a cosmological simulation. In fact, such computing power has enabled the most detailed and accurate recreation of the evolution of the universe to date. Read more
 
17 February 2009:  Volcanic spreading and lateral variations in structure of the Olympus Mons volcano on Mars. Read more
 
17 February 2009:  Diamond-like carbon films are helping probe the far boundaries of the solar system as part of a NASA mission to study how the sun's solar wind interacts with the interstellar medium - the matter that exists between the stars within a galaxy. Read more
 
17 February 2009:  NASA has awarded Clemson astronomers $244,000 to use data from several space-based gamma-ray telescopes to study a mysterious emission coming from the central regions of the Milky Way galaxy. Read more
 
16 February 2009:  The Moon reveals its weirder side. SELENE mission reports on gravity anomalies. Read more
 
16 February 2009:  Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies: stars packed together in early universe a million times more closely. Read more
 
16 February 2009:  Astronomers unveiling life's cosmic origins -- star and planet formation and the production of complex organic molecules in interstellar space. Read more
 
16 February 2009:  The aerospace community knew a collision was inevitable and that, in turn, signaled a potentially worsening hazard for the space station, shuttle, orbiting telescopes and other satellites. Read more
 
16 February 2009:  Ultracold gas mimics ultrahot plasma, simulating conditions when the universe was about one millionths of a second old. Read more
 
16 February 2009: Cosmologist Paul Davies explores notion of 'alien' life on Earth. Read more
 
13 February 2009:  Two space satellites smashed into each other in an unprecedented orbital accident. Early radar measurements have detected hundreds of pieces of debris that could pose a risk to other spacecraft. Read more
 
13 February 2009:  One of the Universe's most impressive stars, Eta Carinae, is found in the Carina Nebula. It is one of the most massive stars in our Milky Way, over 100 times the mass of the Sun and about four million times brighter. Read more
 
13 February 2009:  The most detailed map of the Moon ever created has revealed never-before-seen craters at the lunar poles. The map is also revealing secrets about the Moon's interior, suggesting little water inside. Read more
 
13 February 2009:  Evidence of ancient hot springs on Mars detailed. Read more
 
13 February 2009:  Astronomers unveiling life's cosmic origins. Read more
 
12 February 2009:  EU-funded cosmologists in the UK have produced images detailing the 'Cosmic Dawn', the arrangement of the first big galaxies in the universe. Researchers hope the computer-simulated results will advance our understanding of dark matter. Read more
 
11 February 2009:  How magnetic forces shape cosmic jets of matter streaming out of stars. Read more
 
11 February 2009:  Scientists are trying to understand the mysteries of the holographic principle: How many dimensions are there in our universe? Read more
 
11 February 2009:  Laser-sculpted optical devices for future giant telescopes. Th emerging field of astrophotonics shows promise in analyzing light from the night sky. Read more
 
11 February 2009:  Frequent blasts from a stellar remnant 30,000 light-years away. The high-energy fireworks arise from a rare type of neutron star known as a soft-gamma-ray repeater. Such objects unpredictably send out a series of X-ray and gamma-ray flares. Read more
 
11 February 2009:  ESA extends key missions studying Mars, Venus and Earth’s magnetosphere. Read more
 
10 February 2009:  The world's top ten telescopes revealed. The best observatories ranked by their scientific impact. Read more
 
10 February 2009:  NASA satellites Jason-1, Topex/Poseidon, and OSTM/Jason-2, collect data about sea surface heights around the world. Sea surface heights are one component helpful to hurricane forecasters. Read more
 
10 February 2009:  9 institutions officially sign agreement for 25-meter Giant Magellan Telescope. Read more
 
10 February 2009:  University of Arkansas researchers have used chemistry and geology to create a model that may explain the mystery of how modern-day gullies form on the surface of Mars. Read more
 
10 February 2009:  Number of alien worlds quantified. Current research estimates that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000. Read more
 
9 February 2009:  Astronomers provide the first concrete evidence that star-forming regions in infant galaxies are indeed small - but also hyperactive, producing stars at astonishingly high rates. Read more
 
9 February 2009:  Space dust annoys astronomers when it interferes with their observations of distant stars. And it also poses one of the great mysteries of astronomy. Read more
 
9 February 2009:  Exceptionally Deep View Of Strange Galaxy. The Coma Galaxy Cluster is one of the closest very rich collections of galaxies in the nearby Universe. Read more
 
9 February 2009:  Astronomers will use the powerful MMT Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Ariz., to search for lunar water ice when NASA fires a 2-ton rocket into a polar crater on the moon later this year. Read more
 
9 February 2009:  Should Mars be treated like a wildlife preserve? Researchers say it is not too early to consider the possibility that humans could do irreversible damage to indigenous Martian life. Read more
 
5 February 2009:  Mystery of twin quasar brightness revealed. Variations in the brightness of the Q0957+561 quasar are intrinsic to the entity itself and not caused by the gravitational effects of possible planets or stars from a far away galaxy. Read more
 
5 February 2009:  China, Japan and South Korea are building the world's largest radio telescope array to study the Milky Way and black holes. Read more
 
 5 February 2009:  NASA's SkyView virtual observatory delivers the multiwavelength cosmos. It boasts a full spectrum of data, ranging from radio to gamma-rays. Read more
 
5 February 2009:  Powerful New Technique to Measure Asteroids' Sizes and Shapes. This method takes advantage of the unique capabilities of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Read more
 
5 February 2009:  Increasing greenhouse gases could delay, or even postpone indefinitely the recovery of stratospheric ozone in some regions of the Earth. This change might take a toll on public health. Read more
 
4 February 2009:  Tiniest exoplanet found. Satellite spots a planet less than twice the width of Earth. Read more
 
4 February 2009:  The largest, most massive galaxies in the universe and the supermassive black holes at their hearts grew together over time. Read more
 
4 February 2009:  Refining the search for new planets beyond our solar system. Read more
 
4 February 2009:  Iran has launched its first home-built satellite into orbit, in a move likely to further alarm an international community. Read more
 
4 February 2009:  Cardiff University researchers who are part of a British-German team searching the depths of space to study gravitational waves, may have stumbled on one of the most important discoveries in physics. Read more
 
4 February 2009:  Austrian scientists are trying to understand the mysteries of the holographic principle: How many dimensions are there in our universe? Read more
 
3 February 2009:  The government of Japan will embark on a research and development program in fiscal year 2009 to develop an optical information-gathering satellite that will have one of the world's highest resolutions. Read more
 
3 February 2009:  Precise orbit determination for Jason-1 satellite using on-board GPS data with centimeter-level accuracy. Read more
 
2 February 2009:  Titan's Methane Mystery. Imagine a world where the average daytime temperature is -179°C, and torrential rains of liquid methane fall from the skies. Read more
 
2 February 2009:  Aerospace data could help find environmental solutions. Read more
 
2 February 2009:  Is there a Planet X? Lurking in the solar system's dark recesses, rumour has it, is an unsighted world - Planet X, a frozen body perhaps as large as Mars, or even Earth. Read more
 
30 January 2009:  Exoplanet gets hot flashes. Eccentric orbit creates climate extremes. Read more
 
30 January 2009:  How was the solar system built? Read more
 
29 January 2009:  An alternative proposal to dark energy in which the Earth sits near the center of a large void is undergoing scrutiny, and the results show that void models fit poorly with observed data. Read more
 
29 January 2009:  Astronomers get a sizzling weather report from a distant planet. Read more
 
29 January 2009:  NASA invites public to choose Hubble's next discovery. Read more
 
29 January 2009:  Black hole outflows from Centaurus A detected with APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment) telescope. Read more
 
29 January 2009:  The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit plans diagnostic tests this week after Spirit did not report some of its weekend activities, including a request to determine its orientation after an incomplete drive. Read more
 
28 January 2009:  A new study unveils NGC 604, the largest region of star formation in the nearby galaxy M33. The image shows a divided neighborhood where some 200 hot, young, massive stars reside. Read more
 
28 January 2009:  New Limits on the Origin of Dark Matter. Read more
 
28 January 2009:  Magnetic 'fossils' may come from big bang. Read more

27 January 2009:  Helium rains inside Jovian planets. Models of how Saturn and Jupiter formed may soon take on a different look. Read more
 
27 January 2009:  NASA researchers announced an event that will transform our view of the Sun and, in the process, super-charge the field of solar physics for many years to come. NASA's deployment of two STEREO spacecrafts on opposite sides of the Sun solves a problem that has vexed astronomers for centuries. Read more
 
27 January 2009:  The Orbiting Carbon Observatory and the Mystery of the Missing Sinks. By removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the tree serves as an indispensable "sink" for carbon. Read more
 
27 January 2009:  A speck of the mineral zircon that's older than any yet found on Earth has been recovered from a rock sample brought back by Apollo 17 astronauts. The grain has helped pinpoint the age at which the molten moon solidified. Read more

27 January 2009:  Spinning black holes are ultimate cosmic batteries. Read more
 
26 January 2009:  The C1XS X-ray camera has successfully detected its first X-ray signature from the Moon, the first step to reveal the origin and evolution of our Moon by mapping its surface composition. Read more
 
26 January 2009:  Long, Stretchy Carbon Nanotubes could make Space Elevators possible. Read more
 
26 January 2009:  Dark flow: Proof of another universe? Read more
 
26 January 2009:  Spy satellites turn their gaze onto each other. Read more

23 January 2009:  One intriguing flying mechanism is a horizontal-axis rotorcraft - or "cyclogyro" craft. First proposed in the 1930s, a cyclogyro is a unique mechanism of generating lift forces, being propelled by horizontal rotating wings. Read more
 
23 January 2009:  Severe Space Weather. NASA-funded study entitled Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. Read more
 
23 January 2009:  Yale University astronomers have discovered that galaxies stop forming stars long before their central supermassive black holes reach their most powerful stage, meaning the black holes can't be responsible for shutting down star formation. Read more
 
22 January 2009:  Cosmic-rays detected half a mile underground in a disused U.S. iron-mine can be used to detect major weather events occurring 20 miles up in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Read more
 
22 January 2009:  New understanding of the origin of galaxies, that the galaxies primarily formed as a result of intensive cosmic streams of cold gas (mostly hydrogen) and not, as current theory contends, due primarily to galactic mergers. Read more
 
22 January 2009:  Researchers cooking up new gelled rocket fuels. Read more
 
21 January 2009:  Using a NASA radar flying aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists are getting their first look inside the moon's coldest, darkest craters. Read more
 
21 January 2009:  Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered a planet somewhat larger and more massive than Neptune orbiting a star 120 light-years from Earth. Read more
 
20 January 2009:  International Year of Astronomy 2009 gets underway. The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) has been officially launched at a ceremony in Paris, France. Read more
 
20 January 2009:  Hubble Snaps Images Of A Nebula Within A Cluster. It is rare that an open cluster survives long enough for one of its members to form a planetary nebula. Read more
 
20 January 2009:  Scientists glean new insights into convection in planets and stars. Read more
 
20 January 2009:  Spanish astronomers used  NACO, an optics instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), to study the fine detail in NGC 253, one of the brightest and dustiest spiral galaxies in the sky. Read more
 
20 January 2009:  Were Mercury and Mars separated at birth? Read more

16 January 2009:  Chasing 'Thundersnow' Could Lead To More Accurate Forecasts. Read more
 
16 January 2009:  Life on Mars? Methane 'plumes' raise tantalising prospect of organisms on Red Planet. Read more
 
16 January 2009:  New study resolves mystery of how massive stars form – up to 120 times the mass of the sun. Read more
 
16 January 2009:  Astronomers have observed dust forming around a dying star in a nearby galaxy, giving a glimpse into the early universe and enlivening a debate about the origins of all cosmic dust. Read more
 
16 January 2009:  Astronomers crack longstanding lunar mystery. Ancient rock's magnetic field shows that moon once had a dynamo in its core. Read more
 
16 January 2009:  Astronomers from Princeton and Japan unite to explore the universe. Read more
 
15 January 2009:  European scientists are searching for Earth-like planets orbiting cooler stars in the EU-funded ROPACS ('Rocky planets around cool stars') project, a Marie Curie training network financed with EUR 3.2 million from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Read more
 
15 January 2009:  A synthesis of deformation patterns within and around the Thaumasia Plateau, Mars, points to a new interpretation for regional deformation and the origin of Valles Marineris and associated outflow channels. Read more
 
15 January 2009:  Transiting exoplanets are routinely detected when they pass in front of their parent star as viewed from the Earth. 55 exoplanets have been deteced since the observation of the first transiting planet HD 209458 b in 1999. Read more
 
15 January 2009:  Researchers discovered evidence that blue stragglers in globular clusters are the result of ‘stellar cannibalism’ in binary stars. Read more
 
15 January 2009:  In the game of astronomy, size matters. To get clear images of things billions of light years away, a telescope needs to be big, so does the rocket that carries it. Read more
 
15 January 2009:  The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft began gathering data to build the first maps of the edge of the heliosphere, the region of space influenced by the Sun. Read more
 
14 January 2009:  How to spot moons far, far away. The search for life on another planet is about to be extended – to moons. Read more
 
14 January 2009:  An ongoing X-ray survey undertaken by NASA's Swift spacecraft is revealing differences between nearby active galaxies and those located about halfway across the universe. Understanding these differences will help clarify the relationship between a galaxy and its central black hole. Read more
 
14 January 2009:  XMM-Newton measures speedy spin of rare celestial object. The new information confirms this particular object as one of an extremely rare class of stellar zombie - each one the dead heart of a star that refuses to die. Read more
 
14 January 2009:  Radio telescopes around the world will join forces this week to carry out a unique observation of three quasars, distant galaxies powered by super-massive black holes at their cores. Read more
 
13 January 2009:  Astronomers from Europe and the US have teamed together to study violent flares that are emanating from the super-massive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way. Read more
 
13 January 2009:  A NASA-funded study describes how extreme solar eruptions could have severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth. Read more
 
13 January 2009:  New NASA Balloon Successfully Flight-Tested Over Antarctica. Read more
 
13 January 2009:  Our technologically dependent society could be brought to its knees the next time Earth is walloped by an extreme solar outburst. Read more
 
12 January 2009:  Jupiter-like Planets Could Form Around Twin Suns. Astronomers suggest that planets may easily form around certain types of twin (or “binary”) star systems. Read more
 
12 January 2009:  Squashing Silane into Metal. Squeeze it hard enough and hydrogen strangely takes on a metallic nature. During this state, hydrogen display characteristics including high-temperature superconductivity and produce energy using nuclear fusion and alternative fuels. Read more
 
12 January 2009:  Hubble discovered the cosmic flash on February 21, 2006. It steadily rose in brightness for 100 days, and then dimmed back to oblivion after another 100 days. Read more
 
12 January 2009:  The brightness of white dwarfs may point towards the existence of exotic dark matter particles. Read more
 
9 January 2009:  German scientists have developed a theory that can predict the magnetic field of planets and stars alike. Their computer simulations reveal that the strength of a heavenly body's magnetic field is determined by the amount of energy (in the form of heat or light, for example) that it emits. Read more
 
9 January 2009:  Listening to the early universe just got harder. A research team has just announced the discovery of cosmic radio noise that booms six times louder than expected. Read more
 
9 January 2009:  Big Raindrops Favor Tornado Formation, Simulations Suggest. One of the largest sources of uncertainty in weather prediction involves how microscale structures influence larger-scale phenomena. Read more
 
9 January 2009:  How Martian winds make rocks walk. Rocks on Mars are on the move, rolling into the wind and forming organized patterns. Read more
 
9 January 2009:  MIT provides in-depth look at exploded star, the first fully three-dimensional reconstruction of the remains of a star that exploded in a cosmic cataclysm called a supernova. Read more
 
8 January 2009:  Meteorites found in Antarctica are 4.5 billion year old asteroid crust. Read more
 
8 January 2009:  Hubble finds that even some stars go ballistic, racing through interstellar space like bullets and tearing through clouds of gas. Read more
 
8 January 2009:  Black Holes Lead Galaxy Growth. Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem. Read more
 
8 January 2009:  Physicists have now confirmed that the apparently substantial matter is actually no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. Read more
 
8 January 2009:  Danger ahead as the Sun goes quiet. The sun's ability to shield the solar system from harmful cosmic rays could falter in the early 2020s. Read more
 
8 January 2009:   'Interplanetary internet' passes first test. The new networking commands could one day be used to automatically relay information between Earth, spacecraft, and astronauts, without the need for humans to schedule transmissions at each point.. Read more
 
7 January 2009:  Stars Forming Just Beyond Black Hole's Grasp At Galactic Center. Read more
 
7 January 2009:  Physicists at Indiana University have developed a promising new way to identify a possible abnormality in a fundamental building block of Einstein's theory of relativity known as "Lorentz invariance." Read more
 
7 January 2009:  The brilliant afterglow of a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) has enabled astronomers to probe the star-forming environment of a distant galaxy, resulting in the first detection of molecular gas in a GRB host galaxy. Read more
 
7 January 2009:  Lunar rock-like material may someday house moon colonies. Read more
 
7 January 2009:  Dust made up of similar stuff as the Earth has been found in and around a handful of dead stars. The dust, which was left behind when the stars chewed up errant asteroids, suggests terrestrial planets may be common. Read more

6 January 2009:  Astronomers making high-precision measurements of the Milky Way say our home Galaxy. Read more
 
6 January 2009:  A The planet Jupiter gained weight in a hurry during its infancy. It had to, since the material from which it formed probably disappeared in just a few million years, according to a new study of planet formation around young stars. Read more
 
6 January 2009:  Astronomers have turned to an unexpected place to study the evolution of planets -- dead stars. This might sound pretty bleak, but it turns out the chewed-up asteroids are teaching astronomers about the building materials of planets around other stars. Read more
 
6 January 2009:  Astrophysicists map the Milky Way's 4 spiral arms. The map shows the inner part of the Milky Way has two prominent, symmetric spiral arms, which extend into the outer galaxy where they branch into four spiral arms. Read more
 
5 January 2009:  Galaxies’ collision history revealed. Massive mergers sparked bursts of star formation when the Universe was half its age. Read more
 
5 January 2009:  New computer visualization technology developed by the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing has helped astrophysicists understand that gravity plays a larger role than previously thought in deep space's vast, star-forming molecular clouds. Read more
 
5 January 2009:  3-D Moon Imaging Inaugurated With NASA Instrument, Moon Mineralogy Mapper, aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft. Read more
 
5 January 2009:  Scientists reached the astonishing conclusion that our universe is accelerating apart at ever-increasing speeds, stretching space and time itself like melted cheese. The force that's pushing the universe apart is still a mystery…the "dark energy." Read more
 
5 January 2009:  EU-funded astrophysicists have discovered evidence of water vapour in the early universe. The vapour was found in a quasar 11.1 billion light years from Earth; this is the first time water molecules have been detected so far away. Read more
 
22 December 2008:  European scientists are using data gathered by the European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft to try to solve one of the many mysteries surrounding our nearest neighbour in space: where did its water go? Read more
 
22 December 2008:  A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the periodic "breathing" of Earth's upper atmosphere that has long puzzled scientists is due in part to cyclic solar wind disturbances. Read more
 
22 December 2008:  New Model Explains Movements Of The Moon. Researchers are developing a mathematical formula to study the rotation of the moon, taking into account its structure, which comprises a solid external layer and a fluid internal core. Read more
 
22 December 2008:  Scientists seek ways to ward off killer asteroids. An asteroid called Apophis will slam into Earth with devastating effect in 2036. Read more
 
22 December 2008:  US gives green light for first commercial spaceport. Read more
 
22 December 2008:  A new study that examines the growth of galaxy clusters rather than the movement of stars independently confirms the presence of dark energy. Read more
 
19 December 2008:  Very cold ice films on interstellar dust particles are found in the universe but detailed information about the films' structure has not been readily available, scientists say. Now, state-of-the-art technology is giving researchers a chance to create ice films in cold conditions similar to those found in outer space. Read more
 
19 December 2008:  Dscoveries bring planetary scientists closer to understanding what happened to the water on Venus, which is suspected to have once been as abundant as on Earth. Read more
 
19 December 2008:  Long-sought carbonate minerals found on Mars. Read more
 
18 December 2008:  For the first time, astronomers have clearly seen the effects of "dark energy" on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe. Read more
 
18 December 2008:  Scientists are expanding the search for extraterrestrial life on some very unearthly planets: cold "Super-Earths" -- giant, "snowball" planets that could potentially support some kind of life. Read more
 
18 December 2008:  Researchers use satellites to measure inland floods. Read more
 
18 December 2008:  'Megamaser' is most distant sign of cosmic water. A steamy galaxy at the edge of the visible universe reveals that water was plentiful just 2.5 billion years after the big bang. Read more

17 December 2008:  Observations made by NASA instruments onboard an Air Force satellite have shown that the boundary between the Earth's upper atmosphere and space has moved to extraordinarily low altitudes. Read more
 
17 December 2008:  One of the moons in our solar system -- Jupiter's Moon Europa -- that scientists think has the potential to harbor life may have a far more dynamic ocean than previously thought. Read more
 
17 December 2008:  Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks. Read more
 
17 December 2008:  For the first time, astronomers have clearly seen the effects of "dark energy" on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Read more
 
17 December 2008:  Researchers interpret asymmetry in early universe. Astrophysicists think that their new theoretical interpretation of an imprint from the earliest stages of the universe may also shed light on what came before. Read more
 
17 December 2008:  Cookie cutter in the sky: Seeing the shape of material around black holes for first time. Read more
 
17 December 2008:  Data collected during several recent flybys of Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft have put another arrow in the quiver of scientists who think the Saturnian moon contains active cryovolcanoes spewing a super-chilled liquid into its atmosphere. Read more
 
16 December 2008:  Planet Formation Could Lie In Stellar Storms Rather Than Gravitational Instability. Read more
 
16 December 2008:  Hottest White Dwarf In Its Class, with a temperature of 200 000 K at its surface. Read more
 
16 December 2008:  A detailed analysis of the measurements of five different satellites has revealed the existence of the warm plasma cloak, a new region of the magnetosphere. Read more
 
16 December 2008:  Why Atmospheric Pressure Peaks At 10am And 10pm In The Tropics. The waves, called solar tides, propagate to the ground as they travel around the globe. Read more
 
16 December 2008:  Spinning Water Droplets Could Provide Insights into Black Holes, Atomic Nuclei. By magnetically levitating water droplets, and using a “liquid electric motor” technique to spin them. Read more

16 December 2008:  Solar flares surprise. A stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare – but solar flares obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity. Read more
 
16 December 2008:  Future spaceships should be built in orbit. Read more
 
15 December 2008:  Astrophysicists recreate stars in the lab. Greater understanding of energetic processes in stars could accelerate development of clean energy from nuclear fusion. ESF project brings together astronomical theory, observation and experiment. Read more
 
15 December 2008:  Scientists propose that groundwater had a greater role in shaping the Martian surface than previously believed, and may have sheltered primitive life forms as the planet started drying up. Read more
 
15 December 2008:  What if dark matter particles aren't WIMPs? The fact that WIMPs can naturally explain the amount of dark matter in the universe – left over from the Big Bang – has been described as the “WIMP miracle.” Read more
 
12 December 2008:  Building World's Largest Neutrino Telescope At South Pole. The physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Delaware's Bartol Research Institute are part of an international team working to build the world's largest neutrino telescope in the Antarctic ice, far beneath the continent's snow-covered surface. Read more
 
12 December 2008:  Models of the universe that place us near the center of a large, sparse region don't jibe with astronomical observations. Cosmologists at the University of British Columbia reached the conclusion through a new analysis that reaffirms the presence of a perplexing dark energy. Read more
 
12 December 2008:  Moons outside our Solar System with the potential to support life have just become much easier to detect, thanks to research by an astronomer at University College London (UCL). Read more
 
12 December 2008:  A revolutionary container-less chemical reactor, named Space-DRUMS, uses beams of sound to position chemicals in mid-air so they don't come into contact with the walls of the container. It has been installed on the International Space Station. Read more
 
11 December 2008:  After 16 years of dedicated work, astronomers in Germany, France, the US, Israel and Chile have calculated the orbits of 28 stars at the centre of our galaxy, revealing new information about the massive black hole called Sagittarius A* at the heart of the Milky Way. Read more
 
11 December 2008:  Astronomers have detected water, and possibly even the first signs of weather, on a planet outside our Solar System. The gas giant, which orbits a star 63 light years from Earth, also has carbon dioxide and methane in its atmosphere. Read more
 
11 December 2008:  New detector will aid dark matter search. The existing detectors have a problem: They also pick up particles of ordinary matter — hurtling neutrons that masquerade as the elusive dark-matter particles the instruments are designed to find. Read more
 
10 December 2008:  About 4 billion years ago, Earth, Mars and the moon were flinging rocks into space at a tremendous rate. Now astrobiologists are keen to track down terrestrial meteorites that may have survived on the moon, in the hope of finding within them biomarkers to reveal information about the origins of life on Earth. Read more
 
10 December 2008:  Predicted Planet Seen -- First Since Neptune 162 Years Ago. That planet has now been photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, making it only the second planet ever imaged after an accurate prediction. Read more
 
10 December 2008:  NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star. This is an important step along the trail of finding the chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life as we know it. Read more
 
9 December 2008:  A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a turbulent star-forming region, where rivers of gas and stellar winds are eroding thickets of dusty material. Read more
 
9 December 2008:  Wait a second: 2008 gets extended by timekeepers. Along with the economy, the Earth itself is slowing down, requiring timekeepers to add an extra second to their atomic clocks to keep in sync with Earth's slightly slowing rotation. So an extra second will be tacked on to… Read more
 
9 December 2008:  Moon geology could solve three mysteries of early Earth. Not much is known about the Earth before 4 billion years ago, the earliest period in the planet’s 4.5-billion-year history. Read more
 
9 December 2008:  China, Russia to send probes to Mars next year. Read more
 
8 December 2008:  Aerospace companies and airlines are betting that algae - simple organisms that come in some 30,000 species, many of which can be genetically modified - will prove to be a green fuel that can power jet planes. Read more
 
8 December 2008:  A search for colossal feats of alien engineering called 'Dyson spheres' has so far found no convincing candidates within 1000 light years of Earth. But some say the prospects for finding the hypothetical structures may be getting brighter. Read more

5 December 2008:  The first robot that can jump like a grasshopper and roll like a ball could play a key role in future space exploration. Read more
 
5 December 2008:  Astronomers have used light echoes as a time machine to unearth secrets of one of the most influential events in the history of astronomy –a stellar explosion witnessed on Earth more than 400 years ago. Read more
 
5 December 2008:  Researchers find ancient climate cycles recorded in Mars rocks. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  Bio-inspired Wing Design To Revolutionize Aircraft Flight. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  Astronomers have uncovered strong evidence that brown dwarfs form like stars. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  A pale yellow-green dot to the human eye, Earth's twin planet comes to life in the ultraviolet and the infrared. New images taken by instruments on board ESA's Venus Express provide insight into the turbulent atmosphere of our neighbouring planet. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Explorer satellite rocketed into space in 2004 on a mission to study some of the highest-energy events in the universe. The spacecraft has detected more than 380 gamma-ray bursts, fleeting flares that likely signal the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  Based on the outstanding success of the first tandem mission between ERS-2 and Envisat last year, ESA has paired the two satellites together again to help improve our understanding of the planet. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  How to destroy an asteroid. Blowing up an asteroid in real life, says a Tel Aviv University researcher, will be more complicated. Read more
 
4 December 2008:  A recent ESA campaign has demonstrated how a technique using lasers could be employed to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Read more
 
3 December 2008:  The I-SWARM project maintains that the first 'creatures' likely to inhabit Mars will be swarms of tiny robots. Supported by the EU with funding totalling EUR 4.4 million, this Integrated Project created a group of robots that can carry out various tasks and explorations. Read more
 
3 December 2008:  The remains of a 10-tonne asteroid that exploded in the sky near the Alberta/ Saskatchewan border on November 20, 2008 have been located by University of Calgary researchers in a rural area near the city of Lloydminster. Read more
 
3 December 2008:  Comet Machholz 1 isn't like other comets. It could have formed in an extremely cold region of the solar system. Read more
 
1 December 2008:  Europe's space ministers are backing a range of new and existing initiatives that give Europe the opportunity to enhance its role in space and use space applications to respond more effectively to global challenges such as climate change and security issues. Read more
 
1 December 2008:  Researchers have found new evidence that the atmosphere of Mars is being stripped away by solar wind. It's not a gently continuous erosion… Read more
 
28 November 2008:  Independent first-class European space science as a strategic drive for promotion European interest and leadership. Read more

28 November 2008:  Most planets may be seeded with life. Astronomers have detected a building block of RNA floating within the hot, compact core of a massive star-forming region in the Milky Way. The molecule appears to have formed with all of the other stuff that makes up planets, suggesting that many other worlds are seeded with some of life's ingredients right from birth. Read more
 
28 November 2008:  NASA’s Langley Research Center’s Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instruments have been observing clouds and the radiation budget for nearly a decade now. Key questions remain about how a warming climate will affect clouds. Read more
 
28 November 2008:  Researchers Say Tides Can Cut Life Short On Planets Orbiting Smaller Stars. Planet hunters searching for planets suitable for life will likely find them first around low-mass stars because it's technically easier than finding such planets around hotter, more massive stars. Read more
 
27 November 2008:  Roadmap presents the next 20 years of European astronomy. The EU's ASTRONET project ('Coordinating strategic planning for European astronomy') presented its infrastructure roadmap for the future of European astronomy this week. Read more
 
27 November 2008:  Cosmic-ray hot spots puzzle researchers. Proton discovery may cast doubt on dark-matter theories. Read more
 
27 November 2008:  Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn's moons say there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life. Read more
 
26 November 2008:  European scientists and funding agencies have launched an ambitious plan to prioritize the astronomy projects they believe should be supported over the next 20 years. Read more
 
26 November 2008:  NASA and DOE collaborate on dark energy research. The Joint Dark Energy Mission, or JDEM. The mission will feature the first space-based observatory designed specifically to understand the nature of dark energy. Read more
 
26 November 2008:  ‘Missing link’ galaxies discovered. Astronomers at The University of Nottingham have identified a type of galaxy that could be the missing link in our understanding of galaxy evolution. Read more
 
26 November 2008:  Investigation of the fireball that lit up the skies of Alberta and Saskatchewan on November 20 has determined that an asteroid fragment weighing approximately 10 tonnes entered the Earth's atmosphere over the prairie provinces last Thursday evening. And University of Calgary researcher Alan Hildebrand has outlined a region in western Saskatchewan where chunks of the desk-sized space rock are expected to be found. Read more
 
26 November 2008:  Jupiter has a rocky core that is more than twice as large as previously thought, according to computer calculations by a University of California, Berkeley. Read more
 
26 November 2008:  Astronomers have succeeded in combining three telescopes in Hawaii using advanced computer techniques. This virtual telescope, with a diameter of 782 metres, studies the formation of new stars and planets using light with a short wavelength (submillimetre). Read more
 
25 November 2008:  Scientists using ESA’s Mars Express have produced the first crude map of aurorae on Mars. These displays of ultraviolet light appear to be located close to the residual magnetic fields generated by Mars’s crustal rocks. Read more
 
25 November 2008:  Mystery of missing hydrogen. Something vital is missing in the far distant reaches of the Universe: hydrogen - the raw material for stars, planets and possible life. Read more
 
25 November 2008:  A Los Alamos National Laboratory cosmic-ray observatory has seen for the first time two distinct hot spots that appear to be bombarding Earth with an excess of cosmic rays. The research calls into question nearly a century of understanding about galactic magnetic fields near our solar system. Read more
 
24 November 2008:  Carbon dioxide, one of the telltale signs that a planet may be able to support life, has been spotted in the atmosphere of a gas giant orbiting a star 63 light years from Earth. Read more
 
24 November 2008:  New nano satellite mission to examine link between lightning and terrestrial gamma ray flashes. Massive energy releases occur every day in the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Lightning may give rise to these bursts of radiation. Read more
 
24 November 2008:  A planet may have been imaged closer to its star than any photographed previously, astronomers say. The candidate planet, which might still turn out to be a foreground or background object, appears to lie at about the orbital distance of Saturn around the well-studied star Beta Pictoris. Read more
 
24 November 2008:  Early warning of dangerous asteroids and comets. Silicon chips developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory are at the heart of a new survey telescope that will soon provide a more than fivefold improvement in scientists' ability to detect asteroids and comets that could someday pose a threat to the planet. Read more
 
21 November 2008:  Astronomers have long puzzled over why a small, nearby, isolated galaxy is pumping out new stars faster than any galaxy in our local neighborhood. Read more
 
21 November 2008:  Are flexible, flapping flying machines in our future? Modern aircraft have been fabulously successful with rigid wings and rotors. But just imagine the flying machines that would be possible if we could understand and harness the most efficient and acrobatic airfoils in nature: the flexible wings of the bat. Read more
 
21 November 2008:  Three observatories on Mauna Kea have come together to form the world's most powerful facility for detailed submillimeter imaging. An exploratory project, the Extended Submillimeter Array (eSMA) will explore the Universe using light that the human eye cannot see, at wavelengths around 0.8 millimeter. Read more
 
21 November 2008:  Ice glaciers hundreds of metres deep are lurking just underneath the Martian surface around the planet's mid-latitudes, new radar measurements suggest. Read more

20 November 2008:  NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. Read more
 
20 November 2008:  Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of a previously unidentified nearby source of high-energy cosmic rays. The finding was made with a NASA-funded balloon-borne instrument high over Antarctica. Read more
 
20 November 2008:  Mars experts in Toronto and Tucson, Ariz., say they have fresh evidence that one third of the Red Planet used to be covered in a giant ocean. A probe that has been orbiting Mars since 2001 has analyzed the signature of minerals on the ground, finding types likely to wash up along the shore of an ocean. In this case, it suggests two oceans - a huge one when Mars was young, and a smaller one in the same area later. Read more
 
20 November 2008:  The explosion of a binary star inside a planetary nebula has been captured by a team led by UCL (University College London) researchers – an event that has not been witnessed for more than 100 years. Read more
 
20 November 2008:  Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of a previously unidentified nearby source of high-energy cosmic rays. The finding was made with a NASA-funded balloon-borne instrument high over Antarctica. Read more
 
19 November 2008:  Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma “jet.” Read more
 
19 November 2008:  The powerful black holes at the center of massive galaxies and galaxy clusters act as hearts to the systems, pumping energy out at regular intervals to regulate the growth of the black holes themselves, as well as star formation, according to new data from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Read more
 
18 November 2008:  In a historic event, the Indian space programme achieved a unique feat on Friday (November 14, 2008) with the placing of Indian tricolour on the Moon’s surface on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday. Read more
 
18 November 2008:  To widen path to outer space, engineers build small satellite. It’s not much bigger than a softball and weighs just 2 pounds. Read more
 
18 November 2008:  Physicists test theory that explains why universe is made of matter. Soeren Prell and a team of Iowa State University researchers are part of an international research team testing a theory that led to a share of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for Japanese researchers Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa. Read more
 
18 November 2008:  Scientists are tracking the violent convulsions in the giant cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the solar system 4.5 billion years ago via a few tiny particles from comet Wild 2. Read more
 
18 November 2008:  Massive energy releases occur every day in the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Lightning may give rise to these bursts of radiation. …these energy releases are channeled upward and can be detected only from space. Our atmosphere protects us from the effects of this radiation, but the mechanisms at work can impact Earth's upper atmosphere and its space environment. Read more
 
18 November 2008:  Astronauts on extended space missions can get injured or develop diseases, necessitating immediate diagnosis and treatment. Research conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) ensuring that astronauts could accurately perform remotely-guided sonograms. Read more
 
17 November 2008:  Turning urine into water for space station recyling. Two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth puts you a long way from the nearest kitchen tap. And at $15,000 a pint, the cost of shipping fresh water aboard the space shuttle is, well, astronomical. Read more
 
17 November 2008:  Not knowing which way is up can have deadly consequences for pilots. This confusion of the senses, called spatial disorientation, is responsible for up to 10 percent of general aviation accidents in the United States, with 90 percent of these being fatal. Read more
 
14 November 2008:  Complex systems and Mars missions help understand how life beganUnderstanding how life started remains a major challenge for science. At a European Science Foundation (ESF) and COST ‘Frontiers of Science’ conference in Sicily in October, scientists discussed two new approaches to the problem. Read more
 
14 November 2008:  Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea have obtained the first-ever direct images identifying a multi-planet system around a normal star. Read more
 
14 November 2008:  Evolution isn't just for living organisms. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found that the mineral kingdom co-evolved with life, and that up to two thirds of the more than 4,000 known types of minerals on Earth can be directly or indirectly linked to biological activity. The finding, published in American Mineralogist, could aid scientists in the search for life on other planets. Read more
 
14 November 2008:   The Naval Research Laboratory's Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals (SHIMMER) has successfully observed a second northern season of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), which are the Earth's highest clouds. This successful observation fulfills the primary goal of the Space Test Program Satellite-1 (STPSat-1) Extended Mission. Read more
 
14 November 2008:   It's not much bigger than a softball and weighs just 2 pounds. But the "pico satellite" being designed and built in a University of Florida aerospace engineering laboratory may hold a key to a future of easy access to outer space — one where sending satellites into orbit is as routine and inexpensive as shipping goods around the world. Read more
 
13 November 2008:  Imagine sunglasses that can withstand the severe cold and heat of space, a barrage of radiation and high-speed impacts from small space debris. They don't exist, but Northrop Grumman engineers have created a Sunshield for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope that can withstand all of those elements. The space telescope needs a Sunshield to block heat from the sun so its cameras and instruments can operate properly a million miles from the Earth, when it launches in 2013. Read more
 
13 November 2008:  Is Earth at the heart of a giant cosmic void? Nicolaus Copernicus's idea that Earth was just one of many planets orbiting the sun - and so occupied no exceptional position in the cosmos - has endured and become a foundation stone of our understanding of the universe. Could it actually be wrong, though? Read more
 
12 November 2008:  Shock waves around dusty, young stars might be creating the raw materials for planets, according to new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Read more
 
11 November 2008:  Technology developed by European researchers promises to dramatically lower the costs of satellite bandwidth, potentially bridging the digital divide and enabling satellites to deliver TV, internet and telephony services via satellite. Read more
 
11 November 2008:  After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life. "I think solar minimum is behind us," says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Read more
 
11 November 2008:  Chandrayaan-1, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) lunar orbiter, was captured into orbit around the Moon on 8 November. One day later, the spacecraft performed a manoeuvre that lowered the closest point of its orbit down to 200 km from the Moon. Read more
 
10 November 2008:  Although there are still arguments about whether humans are destined for space, we have had a permanent human presence in Earth’s orbit since the first crew occupied the International Space Station eight years ago, and the technology for private space flight is in the making. But, if people leave Earth in large numbers, what will we do? More importantly, who will we be? Read more
 
10 November 2008:  A team of theoretical and experimental physicists, with participants from Case Western Reserve University, have designed a new black hole simulator called BlackMax to search for evidence that extra dimensions might exist in the universe. Read more
 
7 November 2008:  The simulation of an evolving galaxy by an international team of astrophysicists has provided new clues on where researchers should look to see dark matter. Read more
 
5 November 2008:  According to the international space agencies, "Space Weather" is the single greatest obstacle to deep space travel. Radiation from the sun and cosmic rays pose a deadly threat to astronauts in space. Read more
 
3 November 2008:  During the time it takes you to read this article, something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page. Read more
 
31 October 2008:  Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter - matter's arch nemesis – left over from the very early Universe. New results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult. Read more
 
30 October 2008:  Today cosmologists are challenging the world to solve a compelling statistical problem, to bring us closer to understanding the nature of dark matter and energy which makes up 95 per cent of the ‘missing’ universe. Read more
 
30 October 2008:  Artificial gravity could keep space pendulums swinging. Can a pendulum swing in space? It might if it is quantum powered – a fact that could be exploited to build tiny timepieces that exploit an unusual force that occurs on the smallest scale in a vacuum. Read more

29 October 2008:  Recent discoveries of water and Earth-like soil on Mars have set imaginations running wild that human beings may one day colonise the Red Planet. However, the first inhabitants might not be human in form at all, but rather swarms of tiny robots. Read more
 
29 October 2008:  Satellites are achieving unparalleled efficiency with a new protocol, DVB-S2. The performance of DVB-S2 satellite systems is very close to the theoretical maximum, defined by the Shannon Limit. That efficiency could be pushed even further by network optimisation tools and equipment recently developed by European researchers. Read more
 
28 October 2008:  The existence of galaxies poses much the same conundrum as life itself: They're here, but how did they arise? The prevailing idea is that large galaxies common in the universe, such as the Milky Way, formed within massive clumps of what scientists call cold dark matter, which attracted enough dust and gas to begin igniting stars by the bucketload. Read more
 
28 October 2008:  New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicate that the nearest planetary system to our own has two asteroid belts. Our own solar system has just one. The star at the center of the nearby system, called Epsilon Eridani, is a younger, slightly cooler and fainter version of the sun. Read more
 
24 October 2008:  NASA’s next Moon mission begins thermal vacuum test. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has begun environmental testing in a thermal vacuum that simulates the harsh rigors of space. Read more
 
24 October 2008:  Some of the first data collected by the CoRoT space telescope mission, launched in December 2006, provides valuable information about the physical vibrations and surface characteristics of nearby stars that are similar to our Sun, researchers say. This novel information illustrates the great value of space-based observations, and provides astronomers with insights into the interior of our Sun, other stars, and the overall evolution of our galaxy. Read more
 
23 October 2008:  Dr. Houssam Toutanji, a professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, has published an article that will demonstrate a concept of creating concrete structures on the lunar surface without the use of water. Read more
 
23 October 2008:  A bit of serendipity has given astronomers a surprise view of a never-before-observed event in the birth of a galaxy. Read more
 
23 October 2008:  When astronauts land on the Moon in the not too distant future, it's possible they will be visiting an outpost where they can pick up some fuel and a refreshing container of liquid. Read more
 
22 October 2008:  Despite thousands of years of research, astronomers know next to nothing about how the universe is structured. One strong and accepted theory is that large galaxies are clustered together on structures similar to giant soap bubbles, with tinier galaxies sprinkled on the surface of this "soapy" layer. Read more
 
21 October 2008:  NASA has launched its Interstellar Boundary Explorer (Ibex) to examine the weakening solar wind, which shields planets in the solar system from dangerous cosmic rays. Read more
 
20 October 2008:  Astronomers taking a second look at a distant galaxy have found it is actually a pair of colliding galaxies, each harboring a supermassive black hole at its center. The existence of the black holes, which were fully formed less than 2 billion years after the big bang, suggests that these giant objects could have been common in the early universe. Read more
 
20 October 2008:  About three times a second, a 10,000-year-old stellar corpse sweeps a beam of gamma-rays toward Earth. This object, known as a pulsar, is the first one known to "blink" only in gamma rays, and was discovered by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Read more
 
17 October 2008:  A team of researchers in Canada have made a bold stride in the struggle to detect dark matter. The PICASSO collaboration has documented the discovery of a significant difference between the acoustic signals induced by neutrons and alpha particles in a detector based on superheated liquids. Read more
 
17 October 2008:  Karl Guthe Jansky’s serendipitous discovery gave birth to radio astronomy, which has since delivered paradigm-shifting revelations ranging from the cosmic microwave background to the presence of dark matter in the universe. That science is now on the verge of a 21st-century renaissance that promises even greater discoveries, ushered in not by traditional huge radio dishes but by vast, powerful arrays of smaller dishes. Read more
 
15 October 2008:  Scientists in the UK have used network theory to identify which objects in orbit around Earth are most in need of removal. Their mathematical tool shows the links between known pieces of space debris and pinpoints those with the greatest number of links to other objects. Targeting these highly-linked objects will significantly facilitate the planning of space clean-up. Read more
 
15 October 2008:  Astronomers searching for evidence of the mysterious energy that is speeding up the expansion of the Universe have discovered three new galaxy clusters. They used a microwave survey technique that could rival existing ways of searching for dark energy. Read more
 
14 October 2008:  New images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a giant cyclone at Saturn's north pole, and show that a similarly monstrous cyclone churning at Saturn's south pole is powered by Earth-like storm patterns. Read more
 
14 October 2008:  NASA images of Jupiter's moon, Io, (left) Earth (center) and Mars (right), respectively, illustrate worlds with too much, just enough and too little tidal heating to favor life. Internal heating can dramatically affect the suitability of a planet for life. Internal heating produced by tides in Io is so strong the moon undergoes powerful global-scale volcanism. Read more
 
13 October 2008:  Two days ago, Science reported that astronomers were predicting an asteroid impact for the first time (ScienceNOW, 6 October). Chalk one up for the astronomers. "The prediction clearly was correct," says planetary scientist David Morrison of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Read more

1 October 2008:  Scientists announced today the first evidence yet for liquid water in geologically recent times on Mars. The discovery, made by the Phoenix lander, comes in the form of two long-sought soil minerals, which researchers say could have formed only in the presence of liquid water. But team members can't say for certain where the water came from--and time is running out to solve the mystery. Read more

1 October 2008:  Virgin Galactic is to look at carrying scientific instruments on board one of its space tourism vehicles to gather data on climate change. The company will join up with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) for the venture. Read more

30 September 2008:  The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. “The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust,” says Professor Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused ‘lunar hay fever,’ problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space. Read more

30 September 2008:  Noise from commercial and military jet aircraft causes environmental problems for communities near airports, obliging airplanes to follow often complex noise-abatement procedures on takeoff and landing. Researchers at Georgia Tech have now developed a new microchanneled material that reduces aircraft engine noise by wearing it down through a process called viscous shear. Read more

29 September 2008:  Call it a planetary pile up. Astronomers have discovered the remains of a collision of two planet-sized bodies in a well-established solar system in the Milky Way. They think this kind of event is rare, but the findings suggest that there’s no such thing as a safe solar neighborhood. Read more

29 September 2008:  China's Shenzhou VII space capsule has returned to Earth after a successful mission orbiting the planet. The spacecraft touched down in the Mongolian desert to rapturous applause from mission control. The three astronauts were said to be well. Read more

25 September 2008:  Scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have announced that miniaturised ceramic gas sensors have found a new niche, and it's not in space. These sensors are used for measuring oxygen levels for spacecraft re-entry vehicles. But a group of experts in space technology have shown that the smaller sensors can be used to strengthen heater combustion control, as well as to improve human breath measurement apparatus and fuel cell production safety. Read more

25 September 2008:  Scientists may have detected dark matter - the mysterious substance thought to make up 85 per cent of the universe - for the first time.
They have discovered a surge of high-energy particles from the heart of the Milky Way, Earth's home galaxy, which closely matches the radiation signature predicted for dark matter. Details of the particles, detected by a European space probe, emerged at a cosmology conference in Stockholm. Read more

18 September 2008:  Scientists at Durham University have found the "missing link" between small and super-massive black holes.For the first time the researchers have discovered that a strong X-ray pulse is emitting from a giant black hole in a galaxy 500 million light years from Earth. Read more

17 September 2008:  An international group of astronomers has made a new discovery regarding the formation of globular star clusters. In their study, the scientists examined globular clusters outside the Milky Way Galaxy and found that they are more likely to form in dense areas, not from galaxy to galaxy. Their finding was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal. Read more

15 September 2008:  There appears to be an upper limit to how big the universe’s most massive black holes can get, according to new research led by a Yale University astrophysicist. Read more

11 September 2008:  The world's largest-ever physics experiment has got underway at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland. An international collaboration of scientists today sent the first beam of protons zooming at nearly the speed of light around the world's most powerful particle accelerator—the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to rounds of applause and the great relief of the scientists, some of whom have been waiting for this day for years. Read more

11 september 2008:  The European Space Agency is launching a new satellite to map variations in the Earth’s gravity field with unprecedented accuracy. The satellite will give UK scientists vital information about ocean circulation and sea level change needed to improve climate forecast models. Read more

9 September 2008:  No air. No water. And lethal doses of radiation. Tardigrades seem to be able to survive these conditions without much trouble, researchers have discovered. Exactly how the creatures can survive remains a mystery, but scientists say uncovering that mechanism could help them devise better protection for human astronauts on long missions. Read more

8 September 2008:  China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, state-run news agency Xinhua reports. The Shenzhou VII flight will feature China's first ever space walk, which will be broadcast live with cameras inside and outside the spacecraft. Read more

4 September 2008:  Astronomers have taken the closest look ever at the giant black hole in the center of the Milky Way. By combining telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and California, they detected structure at a tiny angular scale of 37 micro-arcseconds - the equivalent of a baseball seen on the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles distant. These observations are among the highest resolution ever done in astronomy. Read more

1 September 2008:  Researchers examining images of gullies on the flanks of craters on Mars say they formed as recently as a few hundred thousand years ago and in sites once occupied by glaciers. The features are eerily reminiscent of gullies formed in Antarctica's mars-like McMurdo Dry Valleys. Read more

25 August 2008:  The mystery of how young stars can form within the deep gravity of black holes has been solved by a team of astrophysicists at the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh.The team made the discovery after developing computer simulations of giant clouds of gas being sucked into black holes. Read more

25 August 2008:  An ultra-lightweight plane built from carbon fiber and powered using paper-thin solar panels has broken the world record for longest-lasting unmanned flight, its manufacturer claimed Sunday. Read more

20 August 2008:  The spacecraft of tomorrow may look as svelte as their brethren of the past, thanks to a new type of thermal coating. At the American Chemical Society's annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, today, researchers presented evidence that the new material--called a thin-film variable emittance electrochromic device--can protect sensitive electronics from the harsh environment of space, including impacts from micrometeorites. Read more

19 August 2008:  Cosmic cartographers are starting work on the biggest 3D map of the universe so far. It should reveal an undulating landscape sculpted by the big bang, and might give us a clue to the underlying shape of space and the nature of the "dark energy" that is blowing the universe apart. Read more

14 August 2008:  New images from the Cassini spacecraft may help to explain the unusual geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Mission members are now checking to see if the images match the locations of known geyser vents. Read more

11 August 2008:  This is Britain - but not as we know it. These extraordinary satellite images reveal what our nation looks like from the skies. From flight paths and road networks to telephone exchanges across London, the stunning aerial shots paint a striking new perspective on the British Isles. Read more

7 August 2008:  The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has taken the most detailed images ever of the Martian moon Phobos. The pictures, which ESA describes as 'the best images of Phobos ever', reveal previously unseen details of the moon's surface. Read more

4 August 2008:  Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples. Read more

4 August 2008:  The European Space Agency's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is back on track for its launch into space on September 10 2008 after its first launch date was postponed. Read more

31 July 2008:  Scientists have confirmed that at least one body in our solar system, other than Earth, has a surface liquid lake. Using an instrument on NASA's Cassini orbiter, they discovered that a lake-like feature in the south polar region of Saturn's moon, Titan, is truly wet. Read more

30 July 2008:  The origin of magnetic fields in galaxies is still a mystery to astronomers. Popular theories suggest continual strengthening over billions of years. The latest results from Simon Lilly’s group, however, contradict this assumption and reveal that young galaxies also have strong magnetic fields. Read more

30 July 2008:  Aerospace engineers have been holed up in a Mojave Desert hangar for four years, fashioning a commercial spaceship to loft rich tourists some 62 miles above Earth. Now the wraps come partially off the top-secret project. Read more

30 July 2008:  This isn't how a jet pack is supposed to look, is it? Hollywood has envisioned jet packs as upside-down fire extinguishers strapped to people's backs. But New Zealander Glenn Martin's invention is far more unwieldy - a 250-pound piano-sized contraption that people settle into rather than strap on. Read more

29 July 2008:  When astronauts visit the Hubble Space Telescope in October 2008 for its final servicing mission, they will be facing a task that has no precedence – performing on-orbit 'surgery' on two ailing science instruments that reside inside the telescope – the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Read more

29 July 2008:  After years of working mostly in secret, Virgin Galactic has unveiled WhiteKnightTwo, a vehicle the company hopes will launch the beginning of commercial space tourism. Read more

28 July 2008:  What causes the shimmering, ethereal Northern Lights to suddenly brighten and dance in a spectacular burst of colorful light and rapid movement? To find out, NASA launched a fleet of five satellites called THEMIS, the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms. Read more

28 July 2008:  Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer, and its remarkable acuity, astronomers were able for the first time to witness the appearance of a shell of dusty gas around a star that had just erupted, and follow its evolution for more than 100 days. Read more

28 July 2008:  The European Space Agency's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is back on track for its launch into space on September 10 2008 after its first launch date was postponed. The GOCE satellite, dubbed the Formula 1 of spacecraft, has been developed to increase our level of understanding of one of the Earth's most fundamental forces of nature: its gravity field. Read more

24 July 2008:  For the first time, a team of international researchers has found a way to view the accretion disks surrounding black holes and verify that their true electromagnetic spectra match what astronomers have long predicted they would be. Read more

24 July 2008:  Engineers have made a new tiny DelFly Micro air vehicle. This successor to the DelFly I and II weighs barely 3 grams, and with its flapping wings is very similar to a dragonfly. Ultra-small, remote-controlled micro aircraft with cameras, such as this DelFly, may well be used in the future for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas. Read more

24 July 2008:  Bad for strawberries, great for asparagus and turnips. This is the small-print for gardening enthusiasts buying a second home on Mars, should the day arrive when humans colonise it. Read more

23 July 2008:  Before NASA astronauts rocket to Mars, they're supposed to return to the moon in a sweet new ride to test-drive everything from high-tech maps and buggies to new spacesuits and next-generation power sources. Read more

23 July 2008:  Pity the poor atmospheric disturbance that crosses paths with Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm as large as two to three Earths that has raged for at least several hundred years. Read more

22 July 2008:  A contender for the title of brightest star in our Milky Way galaxy has been unearthed in the dusty metropolis of the galaxy's center. Nicknamed the "Peony nebula star," the bright stellar bulb was revealed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and other ground-based telescopes. It blazes with the light of an estimated 3.2 million suns. Read more

22 July 2008:  The world's most technically advanced fighter has put on a spectacular display in its first European appearance. The £71million F-22 'Raptor' gave a 15-minute display of seemingly impossible dips, dives and pirouettes at the Farnborough International Airshow. Read more

21 July 2008:  NASA has began unofficial negotiations with Japan's space agency on purchasing units of an unmanned cargo transfer spacecraft as the successor to its space shuttles, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday. Such a deal would be the biggest in Japan's 50-year space development history, the paper added. Read more

21 July 2008:  A team of astronomers announced they have discovered the smallest and potentially most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet. Five times as massive as Earth, it orbits a relatively cool star at a distance that would provide earthly temperatures as well, signaling the possibility of liquid water. Read more

21 July 2008:  High oil prices have spurred Emirates to make its Airbus A380 superjumbos into paperless aircraft. The Dubai-based airline will remove all seat-pocket paper - in-flight magazines, entertainment guides and shopping catalogues - when the giant aircraft go into service. Read more

17 July 2008:  Astronomers believe they may have discovered the brightest star in the Milky Way amid a swirling cloud of colourful stellar dust. Nicknamed the 'Peony nebula star', the celestial body blazes with the light of 3.2million suns in the centre of our galaxy. Read more

17 July 2008:  It takes three days to travel to the moon and six months to get to Mars. But the real challenge is not getting there, it's what to eat. "Space agriculture is what's required for long-term space exploration," Mike Dixon, director of the controlled environment systems research facility at the University of Guelph, said Tuesday during a space conference in Montreal. Read more

17 July 2008:  Swimmers around the world are breaking records this year like never before, including at this week's U.S. Olympic trials. Some attribute it to extensive training as athletes prepare to compete at this summer's games in Beijing. Others say one factor may be a new swimsuit … a space-age swimsuit made of fabric tested at NASA. Read more

4 July 2008:  The European Space Agency is giving graduate students the opportunity to take their experiments to new heights. Under the programme 'Fly Your Thesis! - An Astronaut Experience', Master's or PhD thesis students will fly their experiments in microgravity.  The ESA's Education Office says interested parties have until 31 August 2008 to submit their proposals.  Read more

1 July 2008:  The practice of radioastronomy is finally being brought up to speed with current technologies. Radio telescopes across the globe are being linked together in a network to deliver new standards of quality of data. Plans for the most powerful radio telescope on Earth are also in development.  Read more

1 July 2008:  A new earth observing satellite being launched in California today will help guide future Australian ocean and climate science.  Read more

30 June 2008: Weak solar cycle may keep more space junk in orbit. Read more

30 July 2008: NASA Goddard mission approved to probe matter in extreme environments. Read more

30 June 2008: Orbiting robots could repair satellites on the fly. Read more

30 June 2008: Aldrin warns US risks falling behind in space race. Read more

30 June 2008: As food shortage weighs heavily on the minds of many, several countries recognise the key role irrigation can play in this issue. A team of EU-funded researchers teamed up to assess how the latest satellite imagery can be applied not only to make water use more efficient, but also boost farming output in the process.  Read more

27 June 2008: Some Martian dirt has the same basic chemistry as garden soil, a new analysis from the Phoenix lander suggests. Read more

27 June 2008: Ancient impact may have created deep niche for life. Read more

27 June 2008: NASA Spacecraft Reveal Largest Crater in Solar System. Read more

27 June 2008: World's first space telescope to discover near-Earth objects. Read more

26 June 2008: EVERY scar tells a story, yet a huge gash on Mars has long proven very hard to read. Now a peek beneath the planet's surface reveals that the scar is the largest known impact structure in the solar system - gouged out by a collision that reshaped the Red Planet. Read more

26 June 2008: Galaxy map hints at fractal universe. Read more

26 June 2008: Moon-Bound NASA Spacecraft Passes Major Preflight Tests. Read more

25 June 2008: 'Frozen' stars could shed light on dark matter. Read more

25 June 2008: Astronomical clues found in Homer's "The Odyssey" could help confirm a total solar eclipse when Odysseus returned home, providing a potentially accurate timeline for the fall of Troy, two scientists reported Monday. Read more

24 June 2008: In a European first, the European Space Agency's (ESA) automated transfer vehicle (ATV), Jules Verne was used to refuel the International Space Station orbiting the Earth at 28,000 km. Read more

24 June 2008: Radio Telescopes Reveal Unseen Galactic Cannibalism. Read more

23 June 2008: Glass's dual personality explained at last. Read more

23 June 2008: Bolstered by images showing water ice in the Martian soil, Phoenix team members are cracking on with plans to analyse the soil in-depth. Read more

23 June 2008: NASA Launches Ocean Satellite To Keep A Weather, Climate Eye Open. Read more

20 June 2008: Air travelers, astronomers stand to benefit from research on atmospheric turbulence. Read more

20 June 2008: Most asteroids are too small to reflect back enough sunlight to be seen by our telescopes. But as cosmic rays travel through our solar system, they may strike a glancing blow off the surface of  asteroid, producing gamma rays (short wavelength light waves). Read more   

20 June 2008: Flexible design in airports essential for courting low-cost airlines. Read more

20 June 2008: Chemical clues point to dusty origin for Earth-like planets. Read more

20 June 2008: GLAST safely in orbit, getting check-ups. Read more

20 June 2008: Mars lander loses day of work after data glitch. Read more

19 June 2008: New type of aurora spotted on Saturn. Read more

19 June 2008: Mars lander may have found ice at polygon's edge. Read more

19 June 2008: Trio of super-Earths found around Milky Way star. Read more

19 June 2008: The biggest black holes may feed just like the smallest ones, according to data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based telescopes. Read more

19 June 2008: The South African International Aerospace Symposium (SAIAS2008) will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 14 to 16 September. The theme for this event will be 'Advancing Africa through Partnerships in Aerospace'. Read more

18 June 2008: One of the ovens on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander continued baking its first sample of Martian soil over the weekend. Read more

18 June 2008: CU-Boulder returns $3M to NASA in satellite design, operation cost savings. Read more

18 June 2008: A Slimmer Milky Way Revealed by New Measurements. Read more

18 June 2008: The Murchison meteorite contains molecules that form the very building blocks of DNA and RNA. This discovery was made by a team of scientists from the UK, the Netherlands and the USA. Read more

17 June 2008: NASA Tests Lunar Robots and Spacesuits on Earthly Moonscape. Read more

17 June 2008: US group Boeing to bid for Galileo navigation contracts: report. Read more 

16 June 2008: Phoenix Mars Lander Inspects Delivered Soil Samples. Read more

13 June 2008: After days of struggling with sticky Martian dirt, the Phoenix Mars Lander has unexpectedly succeeded in getting its first soil sample into an onboard laboratory for analysis. Read more

13 June 2008: A new NASA satellite with powerful gamma-ray vision has soared into orbit. It will observe the deaths of massive stars, probe the gamma-ray sky for unknown objects, and might even pin down the nature of the mysterious dark matter that pervades the universe. Read more

13 June 2008: Scientists Find New Type of Comet Dust Mineral. Read more

13 June 2008: The International Space Station could soon be relaying messages secured using quantum entanglement, if a proposed experiment is accepted by the European Space Agency later this year. Read more

12 June 2008: Discovery's astronauts inspected their ship's wings and nose Wednesday for any signs of damage after bidding "sayonara" to the international space station and heading for home. Read more

12 June 2008: GLAST Observatory in Orbit. Read more

12 June 2008: Plutoid chosen as name for solar system objects like Pluto. Read more

11 June 2008: Do Pluto and its moons feature cosmic graffiti? Read more

11 June 2008: Hints of structure beyond the visible universe. Read more

11 June 2008: Arecibo joins global network to create 6,000-mile telescope. Read more

11 June 2008: Detective astronomers unearth hidden celestial gem. Read more

11 June 2008: Hubble's sweeping view of the Coma Galaxy Cluster. Read more

10 June 2008: Radio waves from Earth clear out space radiation belt. Read more

10 June 2008: Successful first test of high speed 'penetrator'. Read more

10 June 2008: The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. Read more

10 June 2008: Giant Telescope Mirrors For The Moon Could Be Made With Carbon, Epoxy And Lunar Dust. Read more

9 June 2008: The Phoenix lander is getting ready to sniff the Martian soil for signs of life-friendly elements after scooping up a handful of dirt near the north pole. Read more

9 June 2008: Galaxy Collision Debris As A Laboratory To Study Star Formation. Read more

9 June 2008: New Satellite Remote Sensing Tool For Improving Agricultural Land Use Observation. Read more

6 June 2008: Phoenix snaps first close-up of Martian dust. Read more

6 June 2008: Astronomy study proves mathematics theorem. Read more

6 June 2008: Giant telescopes could be built from Moon dust. Read more

6 June 2008: Cassini Sees Collisions Of Moonlets On Saturn's Ring. Read more

6 June 2008: Telescopes from the four corners of the earth have been successfully linked up to create a real-time virtual telescope, enabling astronomers from the EU-funded Express Production Real-time e-VLBI Service (EXPReS) project to simultaneously observe galaxies in the distant universe. Read more

6 June 2008: A team of European and US space operation engineers has won the prestigious 'International SpaceOps Award for Outstanding Achievement'. Read more

6 June 2008: NASA chief urges Europe to build manned spaceship. Read more

5 June 2008: With two test digs under its belt, NASA's Phoenix lander is now ready to do some real science. Read more

5 June 2008: Nearby galaxies are chock-full of dark matter. Read more

5 June 2008: Astronomers searching for distant supernovae to probe dark energy in the early universe have unwittingly stumbled upon two relatively nearby objects that may shed light on the early solar system. Read more  

5 June 2008: Two of the Milky Way's spiral arms may be 'demoted'. Read more

5 June 2008: Team hopes to use new technology to search for ETs. Read more

5 June 2008: NASA Scientists Pioneer Method for Making Giant Lunar Telescopes. Read more

4 June 2008: Spacewalking astronauts work on new Japanese lab. Read more

4 June 2008: A set of 29 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of an exotic type of active galaxy known as a "post-starburst quasar" show that interactions and mergers drive both galaxy evolution and the growth of super-massive black holes at their centers. Read more

4 June 2008: Call it the case of the missing dwarf. A team of stellar astronomers is engaged in an interstellar CSI (crime scene investigation). They have two suspects, traces of assault and battery, but no corpse. Read more

4 June 2008: Milky Way Mapping Project Finds Surprisingly Slow Stars. Read more

3 June 2008: Phoenix digs up possible ice on Mars. Read more

3 June 2008: Newfound planet has just three times Earth's mass. Read more

3 June 2008: Astronomers weigh the coldest brown dwarfs with astronomy's sharpest eyes. Read more

3 June 2008: Mining for Molecules in the Milky Way. Read more

30 May 2008: NASA's Phoenix lander has successfully completed the deployment of its robotic arm, putting it on track to start digging into the Martian soil within a few days. Read more

30 May 2008: If life ever got going on Mars, it may have been exterminated 4 billion years ago by a buildup of salt. Evidence that the planet is poisonously salty comes from a study of minerals near the Martian surface. Read more

30 May 2008: Fastest spinning asteroid spied by amateur stargazer. Read more

30 May 2008: Milky Way's mass is drastically reduced. Read more

30 May 2008: Gamma-ray mission may detect dark matter. Read more

30 May 2008: Scientists Hold Seance for Supernova. Read more

30 May 2008: Warm Coronal Loops Offer Clue to Mysteriously Hot Solar Atmosphere. Read more

30 May 2008: Where man boldly goes, bacteria follow -- Are we contaminating space? Read more

30 May 2008: Pentagon wants laser attack warnings for satellites. Read more

28 May 2008: Upcoming gamma-ray mission may detect dark matter. Read more

28 May 2008: Mars scientists ponder polygon mystery. Read more

28 May 2008: Spacecraft spies probe parachuting to Martian surface. Read more

28 May 2008: Early images reveal frosts on Pluto. Read more

28 May 2008: Discovery Set for Saturday Launch to Space Station. Read more

28 May 2008: The little man and the cosmic cauldron. Read more

28 May 2008: Solar Eruption Seen in Unprecedented Detail. Read more

28 May 2008: September launch for ESA's gravity mission GOCE. Read more

28 May 2008: Satellites illuminate pollution's influence on clouds. Read more

28 May 2008: By resolving, for the first time, features of an individual star in a neighbouring galaxy, ESO's VLT has allowed astronomers to determine that it weighs almost half of what was previously thought, thereby solving the mystery of its existence. Read more

27 May 2008: Mars lander prepares for digging mission. Read more

27 May 2008: First Phoenix images reveal 'quilted' Martian terrain. Read more 

27 May 2008: Solar Wind Challenge: Two BU Astronomers Research Profs Will Debate Differing Theories Of Origin. Read more

27 May 2008: Swiss Atomic Force Microscope Helps Explore Mars Environment. Read more

27 May 2008: Japan is about to roll out the Lexus of space station labs. Read more

23 May 2008: A third giant red storm has flared up on Jupiter, joining the Great Red Spot and the recently developed Red Spot Junior. Read more

23 May 2008: Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life. Read more

23 May 2008: Star self-destructs before astronomers' eyes. Read more

23 May 2008: Sunlit space station to put on marathon sky show. Read more

23 May 2008: Foot-dragging Mars rover finds Yellowstone-like hot spring deposits. Read more

23 May 2008: Phoenix mission to Mars will search for climate clues. Read more

22 May 2008: Storm winds blow in Jupiter's Little Red Spot. Read more

22 May 2008: Twinkle, twinkle, any star - Sun not so special. Read more 

22 May 2008: 100 Explosions on the Moon. Read more

22 May 2008: Swift satellite catches first 'normal' supernova in the act of exploding. Read more

22 May 2008: Artificial intelligence tackles data transmission from space. Read more

21 May 2008: Joint NASA-French satellite to track trends in sea level, climate. Read more

21 May 2008: New model helps to calculate energy output of stars.  Read more

21 May 2008: Gravity Probe B scores 'F' in NASA review. Read more

21 May 2008: NASA clears next shuttle mission for lift-off. Read more 

21 May 2008: Hubble Survey Finds Missing Matter, Probes Intergalactic Web. Read more

21 May 2008: Missing Matter Of Universe Found; Cosmic Web Discovered. Read more

20 May 2008: Mystery deepens over origin of biggest black holes. Read more

20 May 2008: A small red dwarf star has erupted with the brightest flare ever seen from a normal star other than the Sun. Read more

20 May 2008: Self-repairing aircraft could revolutionize aviation safety. Read more

20 May 2008: Dragon programme extended. Read more

19 May 2008: Europe's first crewed spaceship on the horizon. Read more

19 May 2008: Observations from space: NASA environmental data and lung disease. Read more

19 May 2008: Thirty-Meter Telescope Focuses on Two Candidate Sites. Read more

19 May 2008: Strange star stumps astronomers. Read more

16 May 2008: NASA Satellite Finds Interior of Mars Is Colder. Read more

16 May 2008: Eccentric pulsar system challenges theories of binary formation. Read more

16 May 2008: Key molecule discovered in Venus's atmosphere. Read more

16 May 2008: Astronomers use new model of dust in galaxies to remeasure the total energy output of stars in the universe. Read more

16 May 2008: Russian cargo ship lifts off for International Space Station. Read more

15 May 2008: Jupiter moon's poles 'wandered' far and wide. Read more

15 May 2008: Victorian supernova helps fill missing link. Read more

15 May 2008: Russia, Europe ink deal on new manned spacecraft. Read more

15 May 2008: Astrophysicists discover youngest known supernova in Milky Way. Read more

15 May 2008: Wandering poles left scars on Europa. Read more

15 May 2008: NASA study links Earth impacts to human-caused climate change. Read more

14 May 2008: Satellite communications by laser. Read more

14 May 2008: Astronaut health on moon may depend on good dusting. Read more

14 May 2008: A molecular thermometer for the distant universe. Read more

13 May 2008: Volunteers asked to help find dead spacecraft on Mars. Read more

13 May 2008: The human race will find life elsewhere in the universe as it pushes ahead with space exploration, astronauts back from the latest US space mission said Monday. Read more 

13 May 2008: New Water Reclamation System Headed for Duty on Space Station. Read more

13 May 2008: On the International Space Station, astronauts are carrying an experimental device that looks strikingly similar: LOCAD-PTS, short for Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System. Read more

13 May 2008: Intense Testing Paved Phoenix Road to Mars. Read more

12 May 2008: Astronomers begin search for 'vanishing' stars. Read more

12 May 2008: Iron 'snow' may explain Mercury's magnetic field. Read more

9 May 2008: Magnetic rocks may reveal Martian life. Read more

9 May 2008: Exhaling for Exploration: Scientists Test Lunar Breathing System. Read more

9 May 2008: Europe recruits astronauts for possible Moon missions. Read more

9 May 2008: Solar Variability: Striking a Balance with Climate Change. Read more  

8 May 2008: Did 'naive engineers' spur China's anti-satellite test? Read more

8 May 2008: Dust devils spotted at Mars probe's landing site. Read more

8 May 2008: A Super Solar Flare. Read more 

8 May 2008: Saturn Does the Wave in Its Atmosphere. Read more

8 May 2008: Europe creates largest radio telescope network

7 May 2008: Magnets help spacecraft stick together. Read more

7 May 2008: Did Earth once have multiple moons? Read more

6 May 2008: Canada to launch first space mission to hunt asteroids. Read more

6 May 2008: Spacecraft to fly into Sun's corona for first time. Read more

6 May 2008: Asteroid Impact 65 Million Years Ago Triggered A Global Hail Of Carbon Beads. Read more

2 May 2008: Rover instrument to sniff out life on Mars. Read more

2 May 2008: Telescope could focus light without a mirror or lens. Read more

2 May 2008: Aquarid meteor shower to peak on moonless night. Read more

2 May 2008: New type of pulsating white dwarf star discovered. Read more

2 May 2008: Geochemists challenge key theory regarding Earth's formation. Read more

1 May 2008: Saturn storm is longest ever seen. Read more

1 May 2008: NASA: Hubble mission delayed until fall for fuel tank work. Read more

18 April 2008: Dark matter may have been found on Earth. Read more

18 April 2008: New NASA Moon Mission Begins Integration of Science Instruments. Read more 

18 April 2008: NASA Statement on Student Asteroid Calculations. Read more

18 April 2008: The Moon and the Magnetotail. Read more

18 April 2008: Drifting Star Discovered: Implications For Star And Planet Formation Theory. Read more  

17 April 2008: Shape-shifting skin to reduce drag on planes and subs. Read more

17 April 2008: NASA extends Cassini's tour of Saturn's realm . Read more

17 April 2008: Limited transparency in federal nanotech research may hamper development. Read more  

17 April 2008: Stellar Birth in the Galactic Wilderness. Read more

17 April 2008: Mars technology on balloon to study the atmosphere. Read more

17 April 2008: NASA Completes First Full-Scale Motor Test for Orion Spacecraft. Read more

16 April 2008: The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that it is to recruit a new batch of astronauts to take part in future missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the Moon and beyond. Read more

16 April 2008: Pioneer spacecraft mystery may be laid to rest. Read more

16 April 2008: Victorian pistons to cool space-age electronics. Read more

16 April 2008: NASA Extends Cassini's Grand Tour of Saturn. Read more

16 April 2008: Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Awoke from Slumber 300 Years Ago. Read more

16 April 2008: The drifting star: Astronomers 'listen' to an exoplanet-host star and find its birthplace. Read more

16 April 2008: Hubble Pinpoints Location Of Record-breaking Cosmic Explosion. Read more

15 April 2008: Pilots will compete head to head in the world's first race featuring rocket-powered planes on 1 August 2008. Read more

15 April 2008: Hayabusa asteroid probe may never return to Earth. Read more

15 April 2008: Scrap unlucky 13th mission: Russian space chief. Read more

15 April 2008: Delta II Rocket Coming Together for NASA's GLAST Satellite Launch. Read more

15 April 2008: Radiation Risks For Astronauts On A Mission To Mars. Read more

14 April 2008: With less than two months to go before it is due to land on Mars, NASA's Phoenix probe has been directed towards a specific landing site called Green Valley. Read more

14 April 2008: Why is the universe's brightest blast still blazing? Read more  

14 April 2008: Solar Impulse aircraft demonstrates clean mobility. Read more

11 April 2008: Nanotechnology to boost space industry. Read more

11 April 2008: Avoiding wind tunnels, computer simulations pave way for hypersonic flight. Read more

11 April 2008: NASA Sets Sights on Lunar Dust Exploration Mission. Read more

11 April 2008: Spitzer Sees Shining Stellar Sphere. Read more

11 April 2008: ESA to recruit new European astronauts. Read more

10 April 2008: Smallest extrasolar planet discovered: Spanish researchers. Read more   

10 April 2008: MRO Spacecraft Images Mars Moon in Color and in 3D. Read more

10 April 2008: New rocky planet found in constellation Leo. Read more

10 April 2008: Unraveling the Mercury mystery: Boldly going where no one has gone before. Read more

10 April 2008: The largest synthesized telescope in Europe doubles its surface. Read more

10 April 2008: Galileo Masters competition enters new round. Read more

9 April 2008: Team simulates first merger of 3 black holes on a supercomputer. Read more

9 April 2008: Commemorating 30 years of European human space flight. Read more

9 April 2008: Galaxies' spiral arms may betray black holes' weight. Read more

9 April 2008: Hubble maps the changing constellation of Internet 'black holes. Read more

8 April 2008: Giant telescope project begins with a spin. Read more

8 April 2008: New Station Crew Prepares For Launch Tuesday. Read more  

8 April 2008: Milky Way seen to be a galactic cannibal. Read more

8 April 2008: Catching planets in the making. Read more 

8 April 2008: Cosmic engines surprise XMM-Newton. Read more

8 April 2008: Do Dwarf Galaxies Favor MOND Over Dark Matter? Read more

8 April 2008: Second satellite to be launched for EU Galileo satnav project. Read more 

7 April 2008: Rocket rolled out for Korean astronaut's launch. Read more

7 April 2008: NASA says spaceship's violent vibrations under control. Read more 

7 April 2008: Giant robots could carry lunar bases on their backs. Read more

7 April 2008: Meteorites delivered the 'seeds' of Earth's left-hand life. Read more 

7 April 2008: Astronomers View Distant Galaxies Evolving One Billion Years After The Big Bang. Read more

7 April 2008: Evolution Of Venus: First Too Fast, Then Too Slow. Read more

3 April 2008: Cargo ship set for precision docking with space station. Read more

3 April 2008: A team of astronomers says it may have spotted the youngest planet ever found. Read more

3 April 2008: Gravitational wave detectors to get major upgrade. Read more 

3 April 2008: Peanut' stars may explain strange supernovae. Read more

3 April 2008: 'Astro-comb' helps search for Goldilocks planet. Read more

3 April 2008: Black hole found in enigmatic Omega Centauri. Read more

2 April 2008: Universe's tiniest black hole discovered. Read more

2 April 2008: Heavy stars may go out with a whimper, not a bang. Read more 

2 April 2008: Mountains' on stars could trigger gravitational waves. Read more

2 April 2008: Impressive dress-rehearsal for Jules Verne ATV. Read more 

2 April 2008: NASA's GLAST satellite gets twin solar panels in prep for launch. Read more

2 April 2008: ASA Launches Airborne Study of Arctic Atmosphere, Air Pollution. Read more

31 March 2008: Quantum Channel Between Earth And Space? Firing Photons Makes Advance In Space Communication. Read more

28 March 2008: Astrotechnology Brings Nanoparticle Probes Into Sharper Focus. Read more

28 March 2008: Mercury's shifting, rolling past. Read more

28 March 2008: NASA awards innovative research contract. Read more

28 March 2008: Saturn's moon Enceladus surprisingly comet-like. Read more

27 March 2008: 'Sports car' of commercial spaceflight unveiled. Read more

27 March 2008: Cassini Tastes Organic Material at Saturn's Geyser Moon. Read more 

27 March 2008: At the JEC Composites Show 2008 to be held in Paris from April 1 to 3, Fraunhofer researchers will be exhibiting an aircraft wing that immediately detects any material damage. Read more

27 March 2008: A team of engineers from Bristol University has conducted the first firing of the STERN rocket motor. Read more

27 March 2008: New organic molecule in space. Read more

27 March 2008: Scientists are one step closer to understanding how new planets form, thanks to research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and carried out by a team of astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. Read more

27 March 2008: Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found by scientists from the University of Aberdeen and the University of Oxford. Read more

26 March 2008: This isn't your father's idea of a space rover. NASA's Chariot is the first prototype in a new line of lunar vehicles that could someday bulldoze roads, dig trenches, and drill for minerals on the moon. And it is already proving as nimble as it is powerful in earthbound testing. Read more

26 March 2008: NASA reverses budget cuts that threatened Mars rovers. Read more

26 March 2008: If you want a bird's eye view of what is over the next hill, your best bet is a micro air vehicle – an autonomous aircraft with a wing span of less than 15 centimetres. Read more

26 March 2008: Shell Canada has incorporated Earth Observation data into its Sustainable Development Report, demonstrating the potential of satellites to provide a global and cost-effective way to measure objectively the sustainability of business activities. Read more

26 March 2008: Satellites help map soil carbon flux. Read more

25 March 2008: The crew of space shuttle Endeavour is slated to leave the International Space Station today. Read more

20 March 2008: Long ago, antimatter all but vanished from existence, allowing matter to predominate and form the stars and planets of the universe. Read more

20 March 2008: Mercury's Shifting, Rolling Past. Read more

20 March 2008: Fake Diamonds Help Jet Engines Take The Heat. Read more

20 March 2008: The tell-tale signature of the molecule methane in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet HD 189733b has been found with the Hubble Space Telescope. Read more  

20 March 2008: The astronauts aboard the linked shuttle and station rested up Wednesday for the fourth spacewalk of their mission, a caulking gun and goo test. Read more

20 March 2008: Water Vapor Detected in Protoplanetary Disks. Read more

19 March 2008: The Vanguard I satellite celebrates its 50th birthday this year. Its launch on March 17, 1958 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, culminated the efforts of America's first official space satellite program begun in September 1955. Read more

19 March 2008: Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter. Read more

19 March 2008: An unusual electrical disturbance has been spotted in space, travelling unchanged through the ionised gas surrounding Earth. Read more

19 March 2008: Huge fountains of carbonated water once erupted on Mars, hurling hailstones and mud several kilometres into the air, a team of scientists says. Read more

19 March 2008: Two Texas college students discovered an asteroid while examining images of space on a computer, a report said. Read more

14 March 2008: Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered large amounts of simple organic gases and water vapor in a possible planet-forming region around an infant star, along with evidence that these molecules were created there. Read more

14 March 2008: Jules Verne ATV successfully performed two boosts today, bringing the spacecraft to an altitude of 303 km – half-way between the insertion orbit reached after last Sunday's launch and the orbit of the International Space Station. Read more 

14 March 2008: The organic soup that spawned life on Earth may have gotten generous helpings from outer space, according to a new study. Read more

14 March 2008: Purdue University engineers are conducting experiments using a new hydrogen facility to help NASA create designs to improve the cooling efficiency and performance of the J-2X rocket engine, critical for future missions to Mars and the moon. Read more

13 March 2008: The Cassini spacecraft will fly into mysterious icy plumes erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wednesday. Read more

13 March 2008: New radar software can quickly and accurately differentiate signals from birds and swarms of insects. Read more

13 March 2008: Returning humans to the moon by 2020 may seem like a distant goal, but NASA's Constellation Program already has scheduled the first test flight toward that goal to take place in less than 12 months. Read more

13 March 2008: Extraterrestrials will probably never ‘phone’ Earth in a way we’d understand as they’re unlikely to have evolved human-like intelligence – but that doesn’t mean we should give up the search for life beyond our planet. Read more

13 March 2008: Circling the globe aboard space shuttle Endeavour, the STS-123 crew members have completed their first full day in space. The astronauts inspected the orbiter’s heat shield and prepared for their arrival at the International Space Station tonight at 11:25 p.m. EDT. Read more  

13 March 2008: In a find that sheds light on how Earth-like planets may form, astronomers this week reported finding the first evidence of small, sandy particles orbiting a newborn solar system at about the same distance as the Earth orbits the sun. Read more

13 March 2008: The U.S. space agency released its "Research Opportunities in Aeronautics 2008" list, soliciting research in support of its supersonics project. Read more

12 March 2008: Engineers have fixed a glitch in the European Space Agency's newly launched space cargo ship, though the exact cause of the problem has not yet been disclosed. Read more

12 March 2008: Scientist answers how Peruvian meteorite made it to Earth. Read more

12 March 2008: Newly-released images of the lunar south-polar region obtained by ESA’s SMART-1 are proving to be wonderful tools to zero-in on suitable study sites for potential future lunar exploration missions. Read more 

12 March 2008: Columbus camera captures first views of Earth. Read more

12 March 2008: A team of scientists and engineers led by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) will study how to design a telescope on the Moon for peering into the last unexplored epoch in the Universe’s history. Read more

12 March 2008: One of the great ongoing challenges of astrophysics, to find out how stars evolve and die, is to be tackled in an ambitious European research programme. Read more

11 March 2008: The man intended to be the first South Korean in space has been grounded for violating security protocol and will be replaced by a female biotechnology engineer, the science ministry said on Monday. Read more

11 March 2008: Black holes could bump asteroids our way. Read more

11 March 2008: The surprises continue. Scientists studying the harvest of photos from the MESSENGER spacecraft's Jan. 14th flyby of Mercury have found several craters with strange dark halos and one crater with a spectacularly shiny bottom. Read more

11 March 2008: NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make an unprecedented "in your face" flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12. Read more

11 March 2008: The rotating service structure has been rolled away from space shuttle Endeavour in a major milestone leading up to launch.  Read more  

11 March 2008: When space shuttle Endeavor blasts off on March 11, some tiny ‘astronauts’ will piggyback onboard an experimental payload from Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute. Read more

11 March 2008: Astronomers at the University of Rochester, home to one of the world’s largest groups of planetary nebulae specialists, have announced that low-mass stars and possibly even super-Jupiter-sized planets may be responsible for creating some of the most breathtaking objects in the sky. Read more

10 March 2008: An uncrewed Ariane rocket successfully put a cargo vessel into orbit on Sunday in Europe's first mission to carry supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Read more

10 March 2008: The European Space Agency on Sunday carried out the maiden launch of a massive robot freighter designed to rendezvous automatically with the orbital space station. Read more

10 March 2008: Radio waves accelerate electrons within Jupiter’s magnetic field in the same way as they do on Earth, according to new research published in Nature Physics this week. Read more

10 March 2008: Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a "monstrous" two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed. Read more

10 March 2008: Astronomers have measured the distribution of mass inside a dark filament in a molecular cloud with an amazing level of detail and to great depth. Read more

7 March 2008: Scientists have discovered never-before-seen impact "megabreccia" and a possibly once-habitable ancient lake on Mars at a place called Holden crater. Read more

7 March 2008: Saturn satellite reveals first moon rings. Read more

7 March 2008: Astrophysicists are having a heated debate over the wave structure of the Sun’s Corona - a debate which may one day influence solar weather forecasting and the theory behind fusion reactors. Read more

7 March 2008: Astronomers hail first celestial views with twin giant mirrors. Read more

7 March 2008: Has ‘dark fluid’ saved Earth from oblivion? Read more

7 March 2008: Morphing aircraft mimics a bird on the wing. Read more

6 March 2008: Titan's surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth. Read more

6 March 2008: Universe submerged in a sea of chilled neutrinos. Read more

6 March 2008: Mars and Venus are surprisingly similar. Read more

5 March 2008: Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures. Read more

5 March 2008: Colliding black holes may leave infrared afterglow. Read more

5 March 2008: Earth’s rotation may account for wayward spacecraft. Read more

5 March 2008: CERN particle detector: ATLAS completes world's largest jigsaw puzzle. Read more

5 March 2008: The first experiment inside the European Columbus laboratory has got underway to investigate whether plants could grow in outer space. Read more

5 March 2008: Pentagon worried by China in space and cyberspace. Read more

4 March 2008: A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's North Pole. Read more

4 March 2008: NASA'S mission to improve predictions of violent space weather. Read more

4 March 2008: One of the mysteries of our universe is that of dark energy and matter. Scientists all over the world are attempting to discover what particles make up dark energy and matter. Read more

4 March 2008: Lunar eclipse may shed light on climate change. Read more

3 March 2008: Liquid water has not been found on the Martian surface within the last decade after all, according to new research. Read more

3 March 2008: We cannot see the streams of dark matter forming a web across the sky, but unusual cross-shaped galaxies may mark where they intersect. Read more

3 March 2008: Nearest star’s wobbles could reveal Earth’s twin. Read more

3 March 2008: Graphite whiskers, rather than dark energy, could explain dimness of stellar explosions. Read more

29 February 2008: The Valencian Regional Government offers sixty Santiago Grisolia grants for foreign fellow investigators interested in participating in specific research programmes in a range of subjects. Read more

29 February 2008: Could meteorite discovery weaken dark energy’s case? Read more

29 February 2008: Is cosmic string the radio burst culprit? Read more

29 February 2008: Trio of Mars orbiters to monitor Phoenix probe’s landing. Read more

29 February 2008: Scientists at a Japanese university said they believed that another planet up to two-thirds the size of the Earth was orbiting in the far reaches of the solar system. Read more

28 February 2008: Scientists of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment have announced that they have regained the lead in the worldwide race to find the particles that make up dark matter. Read more

28 February 2008: Universe’s biggest stars form in the densest gas clouds. Read more

28 February 2008: A mega-collision between two large embryonic planets could have created Venus as we know it. Read more

28 February 2008: The moon's south pole region, a possible future landing site for human or robotic lunar missions, is far more rugged than had been thought says NASA. Read more

28 February 2008: U.S. scientists have used sodium atoms to determine Mercury's comet-like tail is much longer than had been thought. Read more

27 February 2008: Swift satellite images a galaxy ablaze with starbirth. Read more

27 February 2008: Venus has extraordinarily changeable and extremely large-scale weather. Read more

27 February 2008: An international group of astronomers have discovered that the sun-like star tau Bootis flipped its magnetic field from north to south sometime during the last year. Read more

27 February 2008: German astronomers have boosted our understanding of how very young stars grow, thanks to observations made with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Read more

27 February 2008: Killer electrons lurk in the radiation belts surrounding Earth, called the Van Allen Belts. Something happens there that turns ordinary electrons into high-speed demons. Read more

27 February 2008: Diamonds may be rare on Earth, but are surprisingly common in space - and the super-sensitive infrared eyes of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are perfect for scouting them. Read more

27 February 2008: Asteroid tracking proposal wins $25,000 prize which is hoped to spur the world’s space agencies to protect the planet from potentially dangerous impacts. Read more

27 February 2008: Tender: analysing perspectives for EU-US cooperation on space-related applications and services. Read more

27 February 2008: Giant meteor fireball explodes over northwest USA. Read more

26 February 2008: Astronomy technology brings nanoparticle probes into sharper focus. Read more

26 February 2008: Exoskeleton shows running, not walking, best on moon. Read more

26 February 2008: The night sky on Earth (assuming it survives) will change dramatically as our Milky Way galaxy merges with its neighbours and distant galaxies recede beyond view. Read more

26 February 2008: An accelerating universe wipes out traces of its own origins. Read more

26 February 2008: SCUBA-2 camera will explore earliest phases of galaxy formation. Read more

26 February 2008: Particle beams travelling at almost the speed of light get lined up after information going even faster tells devices to straighten things out. The result may provide information about the Big Bang. Read more

26 February 2008: How the atmospheres of Mars and Venus are affected by carbon monoxide. Read more

26 February 2008: Gaps in the soup of high energy particles near the orbits of two of Saturn's tiny moons indicate that Saturn may be surrounded by undiscovered, near-invisible partial rings. Read more

26 February 2008: Virgin Atlantic became the first commercial airplane operator to fly a plane powered partially by palm oil. Read more

25 February 2008: The Ulysses spacecraft which orbits around the sun is on the verge of freezing to death. Read more

25 February 2008: Scientists tuning very large array radio telescope for deeper exploration. Read more

25 February 2008: Proposed astronomy missions selected for further study by NASA. Read more

25 February 2008: Giant leap for planet spotting technique. Read more

25 February 2008: The heaviest black hole formed from the collapse of a single star weighs as much as 33 Suns. Read more

25 February 2008: Hope dims that Earth will survive Sun’s death. Read more

25 February 2008: Scientists explain intriguing phenomenon on Saturn's moon. Read more

25 February 2008: A small robotic aircraft powered by rotating "paddle-wheel" wings could yet rule the skies, if renewed interest in an antique design bears fruit. Read more

25 February 2008: Japan's space agency has launched an experimental communications satellite designed to enable super high-speed data transmission in remote areas. Read more

25 February 2008: Japan is set to launch a satellite aimed at providing high-speed Internet access across Asia, the country's space agency said. Read more

25 February 2008: China hopes to launch its second moon-orbiting satellite in 2009, state media reported, as the country steps up its space programme. Read more

22 February 2008: Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Read more

22 February 2008: Mars rovers sharpen questions about liveable conditions. Read more

22 February 2008: The light and dark of Venus. Read more

22 February 2008: MIT, NASA to probe universe from dark side of the Moon. Read more

22 February 2008: Giant ropes of dark matter found in new sky survey. Read more

22 February 2008: Powerful explosions suggest neutron star missing link. Read more

22 February 2008: The US is confident that its shooting down of a disabled spy satellite with a missile managed to destroy its potentially toxic fuel tank. Read more

22 February 2008: Giant meteor fireball explodes over northwest U.S. Read more

21 February 2008: Space shuttle returns to Earth after spacelab mission. Read more

21 February 2008: Cassini finds mingling moons may share a dark past. Read more

21 February 2008: ALMA telescope will open new window on the universe. Read more

21 February 2008: Dozens of gravitationally lensed galaxies discovered in distant universe. Read more

21 February 2008: Water gushes created "staircases" on Mars: study. Read more

20 February 2008: NASA MidSTAR-1 successful technologies may be revolutionary. Read more

20 February 2008: MIT to lead development of new telescopes on moon. Read more

20 February 2008: China set to launch record number of spacecraft in 2008. Read more

19 February 2008: The Atlantis shuttle has undocked from the International Space Station in preparation for its return to Earth. Read more

19 February 2008: NASA has selected 19 science teams to conduct year-long studies of new concepts for its next generation of major space observatories. Read more

19 February 2008: The Moon will turn an eerie shade of red for people in the western hemisphere late Wednesday and early Thursday, recreating the eclipse that saved Christopher Columbus more than five centuries ago. Read more

19 February 2008: Earth's orbit creates more than a leap year: Orbital behaviours also drive climate changes, ice ages. Read more

19 February 2008: Mars images show topography of red planet. Read more

19 February 2008: Space Wars - Coming to the sky near you? Read more

19 February 2008: Adventurer seeks more solar plane funds. Read more

18 February 2008: NASA urged to focus on sending people to Mars. Read more

18 February 2008: Shooting down spysat may endanger space station. Read more

18 February 2008: The Red Planet was too salty to sustain life for much of its history, according to the latest evidence gathered by one of the US rovers on Mars' surface. Read more

18 February 2008: Saturn's giant sponge: One of Saturn's rings does the housecleaning. Read more

18 February 2008: Many, perhaps most, nearby sun-like stars may form rocky planets. Read more

18 February 2008: Iran says its space probe sending data to earth. Read more

15 February 2008: Survival in space unprotected is possible – briefly. Read more

15 February 2008: NASA tests under-ice sub with eye toward Jupiter. Read more  

15 February 2008: Arecibo Observatory astronomers discover first near-Earth triple asteroid just 7 million miles away. Read more

15 February 2008: Astronomers discover scaled-down Jupiter and Saturn in a faraway solar system like our own. Read more

15 February 2008: From launch to splashdown: The story of how Apollo flew to the Moon just published. Read more

15 February 2008: Pentagon plans to shoot down disabled satellite. Read more

14 February 2008: Physicists have found a hidden order to the zoo of strange paths that objects can trace in the curved space around black holes, allowing them to create a ‘periodic table’ of black hole orbits. Read more

14 February 2008: Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. Read more

14 February 2008: Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have reported the possible detection of a binary star system that was later destroyed in a supernova explosion. Read more

14 February 2008: The European GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Supervisory Authority has issued a call for tenders for a study on Galileo mission evolution. Read more

14 February 2008: The European GNSS Supervisory Authority has issued a call for tenders for a study on Galileo service consolidation. Read more

14 February 2008: Predicting the radiation risk to astronauts. Read more

13 February 2008: Deadline approaching for NASA astronaut hopefuls. For anyone who has ever yearned to work in space, now is your chance. Read more

13 February 2008: Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Feb. 18, as preparations move forward for the STS-123 mission. Endeavour is targeted to lift off March 11 on a 16-day mission to the International Space Station. Read more

13 February 2008: First stars might have been powered by dark matter. Read more

13 February 2008: Hubble finds strong contender for galaxy distance record. Read more

13 February 2008: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, has found the strongest evidence so far for a galaxy with a redshift significantly above 7. It is likely to be one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen right after the cosmic “dark ages”, just 700 million years after the beginning of our Universe. Read more

13 February 2008: Satellite data to deliver 'state-of-the-art' air quality information in Europe. Read more

12 February 2008: Crashing software poses flight danger. Read more

12 February 2008: Organic molecules found on alien world for the first time. Read more

12 February 2008: Astronauts to attach new lab to space station. Read more

12 February 2008: Invention: Flexible micro wings that adapt to sudden gusts of wind. Read more

12 February 2008: Spitzer catches young stars in their baby blanket of dust. Read more

12 February 2008: A University of Illinois at Chicago scientist will lead a team testing a robotic probe in a polar-style, under-ice exploration that may have out-of-this world applications. But the team will keep to a venue that's much closer to home. Read more

12 February 2008: Would you like to name the next great space telescope? Here's your chance: NASA is inviting members of the general public from around the world to suggest a new name for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, otherwise known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008. GLAST is designed to probe the most violent events and exotic objects in the cosmos from gamma-ray bursts to black holes and beyond. Read more

12 February 2008: NASA to fly Viking into storms to improve aviation safety. Read more

12 February 2008: Jules Verne ATV launch approaching. Read more

12 February 2008: Taking advantage of the presence of light echoes, a team of astronomers have used an ESO telescope to measure, at the 1% precision level, the distance of a Cepheid - a class of variable stars that constitutes one of the first steps in the cosmic distance ladder. Read more

12 February 2008: Iran is to launch two more rockets into space in the next few months, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Monday, after a firing of a rocket earlier this month sparked international concern. Read more

11 February 2008: Star eats star and builds planets from the crumbs. Read more

11 February 2008: Astronauts at the International Space Station got back on track Sunday preparing for a space walk after a German astronaut fell sick, forcing the exercise to be delayed for 24 hours. Read more

11 February 2008: NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft is aiming its largest telescope at five stars in a search for alien (exosolar) planets as it enters its extended mission, called Epoxi. Read more

11 February 2008: Listening for the cosmic symphony: New SU supercomputer will help scientists listen for black holes. Read more

11 February 2008: Computer simulations strongly support new theory of Earth's core. Read more

11 February 2008: Birds, Bats And Insects Hold Secrets For Aerospace Engineers. Read more 

11 February 2008: The Earth's orbital behaviors are responsible for more than just presenting us with a leap year every four years. Parameters such as planetary gravitational attractions, the Earth's elliptical orbit around the sun and the degree of tilt of our planet's axis with respect to its path around the sun, have implications for climate change and the advent of ice ages. Read more

8 February 2008: After two months of delay, shuttle Atlantis blasted into orbit Thursday with Europe's gift to the international space station, a $2 billion science lab named Columbus that spent years waiting to set sail. Read more

8 February 2008: ‘Astronomical unit’ may need to be redefined. Read more

8 February 2008: Astrophysicists in Germany say they can add evidence to bolster theories that water, one of the precious ingredients for life, exists on the Saturnian moon Enceladus. Read more

8 February 2008: Imagine trying to catch up to something moving close to the speed of light - the fastest anything can move - and sending ahead information in time to make mid-path flight corrections. Impossible? Not quite. Physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, have achieved this tricky task - and the results may save the Lab money and time in their quest to understand the inner workings of the early universe. Read more

8 February 2008: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil – the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies. Read more

7 February 2008: Dark matter is supposed to be spread throughout the universe, but a spiral galaxy called NGC 4736 seems to be empty of the stuff. Read more

7 February 2008: A robotic observatory has been installed on a high-altitude plateau near the South Pole – it will test if the site offers the best seeing in the world. Read more

7 February 2008: Cosmic flares shot from exploding black holes could provide long-sought proof of extra spatial dimensions, new calculations suggest. Read more

7 February 2008: In its 2009 budget proposal to Congress, the agency commits to a $3 billion-class mission to the solar system's icy moons. Read more

7 February 2008: One of Saturn's rings does housecleaning, soaking up material gushing from the fountains on Saturn's tiny ice moon Enceladus, according to new observations from the Cassini spacecraft. Read more

7 February 2008: Astrophysicists in Germany say they can add evidence to bolster theories that water, one of the precious ingredients for life, exists on the Saturnian moon Enceladus. Read more

7 February 2008: Drapers’ Company Junior Research Fellowships are given for research in the sciences, and will be offered this year for research in the fields of engineering science, materials science and Earth sciences. Read more  

7 February 2008: NASA managers on Tuesday cleared space shuttle Atlantis for lift-off in two days on a mission to deliver Europe's first permanent space laboratory to the International Space Station. Read more

7 February 2008: A spacecraft made of folded paper zooming through the skies may sound far-fetched, but Japanese scientists plan to launch paper planes from the International Space Station to see if they make it back to Earth. Read more

7 February 2008: 'Today is a great day,' said European Science Commissioner Janez Potocnik at the launch forum of the 'Clean Sky' Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) that aims to put Europe at the cutting edge of greener aircraft design. Read more

5 February 2008: Seven astronauts returned to NASA's launch site Monday to take a new shot at flying space shuttle Atlantis to the international space station. Read more

5 February 2008: Iran launched a research rocket Monday and unveiled its first major space center, which will be used to launch research satellites, state-run television reported. Read more

5 February 2008: A team of astronomers has discovered a neutron star emitting an extended stream of powerful X rays, marking the first time such an extended X-ray jet has been detected originating from any class of object other than black holes. Read more

5 February 2008: Birds, bats and insects hold secrets for aerospace engineers. Read more

4 February 2007: A team of scientists representing six international institutions, including Texas A&M University, has succeeded in reaching the summit of Antarctica. Read more

4 February 2007: First results from a new NASA-funded scientific instrument at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii are helping scientists overturn long-standing assumptions about powerful explosions called novae and have produced the first unified model for a nearby nova called RS Ophiuchi. Read more

4 February 2007: The recent flyby of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has given scientists an entirely new look at a planet once thought to have characteristics similar to those of Earth's moon. Read more

1 Feburary 2008:A bizarre spider shape has been discovered on the surface of Mercury during the first flyby of the planet by NASA's Messenger spacecraft. Read more

1 Feburary 2008:The U.S. space agency issued an environmental impact statement for its Constellation Program that's aimed at returning humans to the moon by 2020. Read more

1 Feburary 2008:Engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have found that a strong electric field can stabilize the surface of metals and other solids that conduct electricity, inhibiting the formation of cracks caused by stress. This innovation could improve the function and reliability of a wide variety of machines including aircraft, electronic devices and medical transplants. Read more

1 Feburary 2008:Two astronauts pulled off a riskier and trickier-than-usual spacewalk Wednesday, replacing a failed electric motor and giving the international space station a much-needed power boost. Read more

1 Feburary 2008:The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express has returned striking scenes of the Terby crater on Mars. Read more

31 January 2008: Galaxies today are struggling to clump together against the incredible repulsive power of dark energy, hints a new survey of thousands of galaxies. Measuring this anti-clumping effect puts a new arrow in the quiver of cosmologists seeking to uncover the nature of the mysterious force. Read more

31 January 2008: The planet Mercury's magnetic field appears to be strong enough to fend off the harsh solar wind from most of its surface, according to data gathered in part by a University of Michigan instrument onboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft. Read more

31 January 2008: A faulty control cable caused the glitch that subjected two Russian cosmonauts and Malaysia's first space traveler to a rough trip back to Earth, according to a report Tuesday. Read more

31 January 2008: Earth dodged a bullet today, when asteroid TU24 passed within 540,000 kilometers of our planet, which is just down the street on a galactic scale. Read more

30 January 2008: Commercial satellite operators last year worked harder to prevent space debris, although a Chinese anti-satellite test sharply worsened the problem of orbital junk, a French official said on Tuesday. Read more

30 January 2008: A team of European researchers has developed an innovative traffic control system to increase airport safety even in the worst weather conditions. Read more

30 January 2008: Light reflected from planets is polarised. This basic property has enabled scientists to observe exoplanets (also called extra-solar), which are found outside the realm of our own solar system. Read more

30 January 2008: UK astronomers have lost their front-row view of the northern sky. Following UK funding cuts to the Gemini Observatory, the observatory's board has refused to allow the country to use the 8-metre Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, US – the only telescope of its calibre in the northern hemisphere that the UK had direct access to. Read more

30 January 2008: Galaxies tend to give birth to their stars on the road, while travelling down intergalactic highways towards cosmic cities called galaxy clusters, new Spitzer Space Telescope observations reveal. Read more 

30 January 2008: The largest asteroid to come near the Earth for 19 years will make its closest approach on Tuesday, venturing as close as 1.4 times the distance to the Moon. Read more

30 January 2008: The Expedition 16 crew aboard the International Space Station wrapped up preparations Tuesday for a 6.5-hour spacewalk scheduled to begin early Wednesday. Read more 

30 January 2008: A strange and violent fate awaits a white dwarf star that wanders too close to a moderately massive black hole. Read more

29 January 2008: A mushroom-shaped hydrogen cloud rearing 1000 light years above the plane of our galaxy is the aftermath of a massive gas cloud that dive-bombed the Milky Way, new computer simulations suggest. Read more

29 January 2008: First results from a new NASA-funded scientific instrument at the W. M. Keck Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, are helping scientists overturn long-standing assumptions about powerful explosions called novae and have produced specific information about one nearby nova. Read more

29 January 2008: The most neutron-rich matter that can be made on Earth—the nucleus of the helium-8 atom—has been created, trapped and characterized by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. This new measurement gives rise to several significant consequences in nuclear theory and the study of neutron stars. Read more

29 January 2008: The use of a drug used in cancer treatment activates stem cells that differentiate into bone appears to cause regeneration of bone tissue and be may be a potential treatment strategy for osteoporosis, according to a report in the February 2008 Journal of Clinical Investigation. Read more

29 January 2008: Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have obtained the first images of asteroid 2007 TU24 using high-resolution radar data. Read more

28 January 2008: A sludgy substance seen on the ultrasound images of about 15 percent of pregnancies is in fact a bacterial biofilm in the amniotic fluid, according to the USC School of Dentistry’s resident expert on the slimy structures. Read more

25 January 2008: Samples of Comet Wild 2 suggest it is made of rocky material, like an asteroid, rather than the fluffy dust expected of a comet. Read more

24 January 2008: Towering storms more than 100 kilometres tall have been caught punching up through Jupiter's cloud deck for the first time, thanks to a series of Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observations. Read more

24 January 2008: Traces of vast cosmic strings have been found in radiation from the early universe, a controversial new study says. Read more

24 January 2008: ESA’s Cluster mission has, for the first time, observed the extent of the region that triggers magnetic reconnection, and it is much larger than previously thought. This gives future space missions a much better chance of studying it. Read more

24 January 2008: NASA's S-3 Viking aircraft returned home to NASA's Glenn Research Center after extensive modifications to transform it from a carrier-based military aircraft to a state-of-the-art icing research aircraft. Read more

24 January 2008: Russia, whose space programme relies heavily on a base in neighbouring Kazakhstan, is to build its own launch site for manned flights by 2018, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying Wednesday. Read more

24 January 2008: A Japanese astronaut plans to throw a boomerang inside a space station to test how it can fly in zero gravity, an official said Wednesday. Read more

23 January 2008: Legions of tiny black holes created during the big bang may lurk at the centre of the galaxy, creating a prodigious antimatter factory, a new study suggests. Read more

23 January 2008: THE Higgs boson has been moonlighting. Not content with its day job of giving other particles their mass, it may also have driven the expansion of the early universe, given a little tinkering, according to two separate studies. Read more

23 January 2008: Traces of vast cosmic strings have been found in radiation from the early universe, a controversial new study says. If confirmed to exist, cosmic strings could offer an unprecedented window into the extreme physics of the infant universe. Read more

22 January 2008: With the signing of the prime contract on 18 January, Europe's first mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, has officially entered its industrial development phase. Astrium, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), will be in charge of designing and building the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Transfer Module for the mission that is due to launch in August 2013. Read more

22 January 2008: Images from NASA's Messenger spacecraft hint at the presence of solidified lava flows on the surface of Mercury. If confirmed, they should provide crucial clues to unlocking the planet's history. Read more

22 January 2008: Traces of vast cosmic strings have been found in radiation from the early universe, a controversial new study says.  Read more

16 January 2008: Amateur astronomers saw only a fuzzy patch of light when Comet 8P/Tuttle made its closest approach to the Earth on 2 January. But astronomers using the world's largest radio dish, the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, got a much more detailed, and surprising, view. Read more

16 January 2008: Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide -- two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids -- in a galaxy some 250 million light years away. Read more

16 January 2008: Cameras and sensors that will look for the presence of water on the moon have completed validation tests and been shipped to the manufacturer of NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. Read more

16 January 2008: Consider it a case of exquisite timing. Just last week, solar physicists announced the beginning of a new solar cycle and now, Jan. 14th, the Ulysses spacecraft is flying over a key region of solar activity--the sun's North Pole. Read more

14 January 2008: South Korea has decided to terminate the eight-year mission of its first multipurpose satellite, which controllers lost contact with last month, the space agency said Sunday. Read more

14 January 2008: NASA began installing a new connector in Atlantis' fuel tank Friday in hopes of launching the space shuttle in early February, two months late. Read more

14 January 2008: European Cosmologists may have shed new light on one of astronomy's greatest mysteries: how to measure dark energy. Read more

14 January 2008: The Mediterranean school on mesoscale meteorology (MSMM) will be held in Alghero, Italy, from 26 to 30 May. Read more

10 January 2008: Galaxy's antimatter may leak from black holes. Read more

10 January 2008: A colossal clash of planets may explain why an alien planet 170 light years from Earth is piping hot. Read more

10 January 2008: Hundreds of millions — or even billions — of years after planets would have initially formed around two unusual stars, a second wave of planetesimal and planet formation appears to be taking place. Read more

10 January 2008: When Worlds Collide: Have Astronomers Observed the Aftermath of a Distant Planetary Collision? Read more

10 January 2008: Astronomers studying a nearby galaxy have spied a rare type of star system -- one that contains a black hole that suddenly began glowing brightly with X-rays. Read more

9 January 2008: Space shuttle astronauts will attempt an unprecedented in-orbit repair of key Hubble Space Telescope (HST) instruments during the servicing mission scheduled for August 2008. Read more

9 January 2008: Discovery of two new components within a puzzling spiral galaxy confirm it must have a pair of arms winding in the opposite direction from most galaxies, according to results being presented today to the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas. Read more

9 January 2008: China plans to launch its third manned space mission that will feature its first-ever space walk during 2008, state media said Tuesday. Read more

9 January 2008: Astronomers have known for decades that supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies can shoot out jets of subatomic particles at tremendous speeds. Read more

8 January 2008: A new 11-year solar cycle has officially begun, now that a sunspot has been found with a magnetic field pointing in the opposite direction from those in the previous cycle. Read more

8 January 2008: Russia plans to participate in a European mission to investigate Jupiter's moon Europa and search for simple life forms, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday, quoting a senior researcher. Read more

8 January 2008: China is to launch 15 rockets, 17 satellites and its third manned mission in 2008, flexing its muscle in space in a year in which it will host the summer Olympics. Read more

19 December 2007: A furious rate of star formation discovered in a distant galaxy shows that galaxies in the early universe developed either much faster or in a different way from what astronomers have thought. Read more

19 December 2007: A jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy strikes the edge of another galaxy. Read more

19 December 2007: Russia is developing a space platform from which missions to the moon and Mars could be launched, the Russian space agency said Tuesday. Read more

18 December 2007: A collaboration of over 50 astronomers, The IPHAS consortium, led from the UK, with partners in Europe, USA, Australia, has released today (10th December 2007) the first comprehensive optical digital survey of our own Milky Way. Read more

18 December 2007: The UK's Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has expressed its dismay at the level of cuts to UK astronomy research recently announced by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Cuts amount to about GBP 80 million (€112 million) over three years. Read more

18 December 2007: A new weapon of intergalactic war has been found. A jet of hot gas and high-energy particles is shooting out from the core of a galaxy called 3C321 and hitting a neighbour, a new study reveals. Read more

18 December 2007: The U.S. space agency said it will begin testing core rocket engine components from the Apollo era this month to help build the Ares rocket. Read more

18 December 2007: A powerful jet from a super massive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new findings from NASA observatories. Read more

18 December 2007: The solar physics community is abuzz this week. No, there haven't been any great eruptions or solar storms. The source of the excitement is a modest knot of magnetism that popped over the sun's eastern limb on Dec. 11^th Read more

18 December 2007: New software is helping NASA find safe places for the Spirit rover to ride out future Martian winters. Read more

18 December 2007: A "death star" galaxy is sending out a powerful jet of particles and magnetic radiation that is likely obliterating any possible life in its broad path, notably in a nearby galaxy. Read more

17 December 2007: India has installed a pair of giant antennas to monitor a planned robotic mission to the moon next year, making it one of a few nations with deep space tracking ability, officials said. Read more

17 December 2007: NASA has approved the retargeting of the EPOXI mission for a flyby of comet Hartley 2 on Oct. 11, 2010. Hartley 2 was chosen as EPOXI's destination after the initial target, comet Boethin, could not be found. Scientists theorize comet Boethin may have broken up into pieces too small for detection. Read more

17 December 2007: Schoolchildren in the UK have been set the challenge of designing an experiment that can be flown on a small satellite. The winner will work with a UK company to develop the flight hardware so that the experiment can take place. Read more

14 December 2007: The Techinnov innovation and development forum will be held in Paris, France, on 7 February. Read more

14 December 2007: The U.S. space agency has selected The Boeing Co. as the prime contractor to produce, deliver and install avionics systems for the Ares I rocket. Read more

14 December 2007: NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) has arrived at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington for its final round of testing. Read more

14 December 2007: In Germany, the first international telescope station of the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope has started operation. The station, dubbed IS-DE1, which will be run by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, is situated in Effelsberg in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and is the second of many to be installed. Read more

14 December 2007: A newly announced NASA mission will examine the Moon's interior with more than 100 times the sensitivity of previous missions Read more

14 December 2007: Recently, astronomers have announced the discovery of several planets that are potentially much smaller, with a minimum mass lower than 10 Earth masses: the now so-called super-Earths. Read more

14 December 2007: New observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicate the rings of Saturn, once thought to have formed during the age of the dinosaurs, instead may have been created roughly 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system was still under construction. Read more

14 December 2007: It has been 35 years since humans last walked on the moon, but there has been much recent discussion about returning, either for exploration or to stage a mission to Mars. Read more

13 December 2007: We call it home, but the Milky Way can still surprise us. It does not have just one halo of stars, as we thought, but two. Read more

13 December 2007: Rocky extrasolar planets thought to be half frozen and half scorched might instead rock back and forth, creating large swaths of twilight with temperatures suitable for life. Read more

13 December 2007: Within the next twenty years, people again will explore the vast lunar terrain. Read more

13 December 2007: Somewhere deep below Saturn’s cloud tops, the planet rotates at a constant speed. Determining this interior period of rotation has proven extremely complicated. Now, with new Cassini results, a team of European scientists have taken an important step forward. Read more

13 December 2007: Scrutiny by NASA's newest Mars orbiter is helping scientists learn the stories of some of the weirdest landscapes on Mars, as well as more familiar-looking parts of the Red Planet. Read more

13 December 2007: New findings from NASA's CloudSat and other spacecraft in NASA's "A-Train" constellation of five Earth observing satellites offer important insights into this year's record reduction of Arctic sea ice, global rainfall patterns and the effects of pollution on clouds. Read more  

12 December 2007: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists recently led a team of researchers to study potential effects of space radiation on astronauts. Read more

12 December 2007: The Boeing Co. announced the successful U.S. launch of the second of four Italian COSMO satellites. Read more

12 December 2007: Organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen and form the building blocks of all life on Earth. By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have shown for the first time that building blocks of life formed on Mars early in its history. Read more

12 December 2007: The Voyager 2 spacecraft's Plasma Science instrument, developed at MIT in the 1970s, has turned up surprising revelations about the boundary zone that marks the edge of the sun's influence in space. Read more

11 December 2007: The Voyager 2 spacecraft has crossed an important space frontier called the termination shock, and in a few years may become the first object made by humans to travel outside the solar system. Read more

11 December 2007: German-American collaboration in the field of radio astronomy is set to get a boost thanks to a new agreement between Germany's Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) and the US' National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Read more

10 December 2007: The universe might have been hospitable for life 500 million years earlier than we thought, according to researchers at the University of Texas in Austin. Read more

10 December 2007: An intergalactic particle beam stretching for more than a million light years is the longest ever seen. Read more

10 December 2007: The Columbus laboratory, Europe's first laboratory for long-term research in space conditions, is due to be launched on 8 December. It will hitch a lift with NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis, taking off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US. Read more

7 December 2007: A significant milestone for the Hubble Space Telescope successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is on course to be reached before Christmas with the testing of the verification model of the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. Read more

7 December 2007: Much of the gaseous mass of the universe is bound up in a tangled web of cosmic filaments that stretch for hundreds of millions of light-years, according to a new supercomputer study by a team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more

7 December 2007: Two of Saturn's small moons look eerily like flying saucers, new observations by the Cassini spacecraft reveal. Read more

7 December 2007: Magnetic waves ripple through the Sun's outer atmosphere with enough energy to heat the region to its astonishing temperature of millions of degrees, new views from the Hinode spacecraft suggest. Read more

7 December 2007: Earth Observation Essential For Geohazard Mitigation. Read more

7 December 2007: China's space program will maintain steady long-term growth to serve strategic national interests, but it is peaceful in nature and costs just a fraction of NASA's spending. Read more

6 December 2007: Gas giant planets can get twice as close to their stars as Mercury is to the Sun without evaporating, a new computer simulation suggests. Read more

6 December 2007: Flying fish were the inspiration for an unmanned seaplane with a 7-foot wingspan developed at the University of Michigan. The autonomous craft is believed to be the first seaplane that can initiate and perform its own takeoffs and landings on water. Read more

6 December 2007: For five years, Stanford research physicist Phil Scherrer and his team have raised a sophisticated space telescope with the attention a parent gives to a child, preparing it for the day when it flies away on a satellite to study the weather on the sun—and maybe save an astronaut from dying of radiation sickness. Read more

6 December 2007: A prototype of the P80 rocket motor, which will power the first stage of ESA's new small launcher - Vega, was successfully tested on 4 December at the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Ignition occurred at 12:35 local time (15:35 UTC/GMT). Read more

6 December 2007: Lightning Protection for the Next Generation Spacecraft. Read more

6 December 2007: A dwarf star with a surprisingly magnetic personality and a huge hot spot covering half its surface area is showing astronomers that life as a cool dwarf is not necessarily as simple and quiet as they once assumed. Read more

5 December 2007: Stars like the Sun may drift into space like ghosts when they die, Hubble Space Telescope observations reveal. But what propels them is still a mystery. Read more

5 December 2007: Space shuttle Atlantis is set to begin its launch countdown for the STS-122 mission with a flurry of activities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 4:31 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 6. Read more

5 December 2007: University of British Columbia astronomer Harvey Richer and UBC graduate student Saul Davis have discovered that white dwarf stars are born with a natal kick, explaining why these smoldering embers of Sun-like stars are found on the edge rather than at the centre of globular star clusters. Read more

4 December 2007: Sending an unmanned spacecraft to the outer fringes of the solar system requires extensive planning. Read more

4 December 2007: The universe's first stars may have been bloated behemoths powered by dark matter, suggests an intriguing, if speculative, new study. Read more

4 December 2007: NASA has stepped up to the challenge of an NRC study by defining a four-spacecraft constellation that will probe known magnetic reconnection sites with the highest-resolution charged particle, electric field and magnetic field measurements yet performed in space. Read more

4 December 2007: Faint, fleeting blue flashes of radiation emitted by particles that travel faster than the speed of light through the atmosphere may help scientists solve one of the oldest mysteries in astrophysics. Read more

4 December 2007: Mark your calendar: The best meteor shower of 2007 peaks on Friday, December 14th. Read more

4 December 2007: A preliminary design review has concluded and verified the integrated performance of all subsystems in the Optical Telescope Element on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Read more

4 December 2007: With NASA’s announcement today of the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on 6 December, ESA astronauts Hans Schlegel, from Germany, and Leopold Eyharts, from France, are set to carry ESA’s Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station. Read more.

3 December 2007: The head of the European satellite launch group Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, warned the United States Friday against Chinese "dumping" in the market and suggested Washington should improve its oversight. Read more

3 December 2007: NASA has cleared Atlantis for a Thursday launch, one month after the last space shuttle flight and a flurry of work since then getting the international space station ready for a new laboratory. Read more

3 December 2007: The Group on Earth Observations aims to link up the myriad satellites, ground stations, radar systems and ocean monitors that often operate in isolation. Read more

3 December 2007: Hubble has sent back an early Christmas card with this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the nearby spiral galaxy Messier 74. Read more

3 December 2007: Europe will set down its own stake in space next week with the launch of the Columbus science laboratory to the International Space Station, ending a quarter century in which European space pioneers had to run their experiments on orbital outposts owned by others.  Read more

3 December 2007: The European Union's planned satellite navigation system cleared a major hurdle on Friday, gaining backing from all EU countries including Spain. Read more

3 December 2007: European Union countries haggled on Thursday over a long-delayed project to rival the U.S. Global Positioning System, seeking to salvage the multi-billion euro program before an end-of-the-year deadline. Read more

30 November 2007: The European Space Agency (ESA) and international telecoms company Inmarsat Global have signed a contract for the development of one of the world's largest telecommunications satellites, to be known as Alphasat. Read more

30 November 2007: The biggest black holes in the universe might have grown within the bellies of giant stars, a new study suggests. Read more

30 November 2007: A developing star wrapped in a black cocoon of dust is seen sprouting giant jets in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Read more

30 November 2007: Researchers using supercomputer simulations have exposed a very violent and critical relationship between interstellar gas and dark matter when galaxies are born – one that has been largely ignored by the current model of how the universe evolved. Read more

29 November 2007: Tiny galaxies that may be the first building blocks of galaxies like the Milky Way have turned up in an extremely long exposure of the early universe. Read more

29 November 2007: WITH scorching rocks, downpours of sulphuric acid, and a crushing atmosphere with a pressure 90 times Earth's, Venus has to be the most hellish planet in the solar system. Read more

29 November 2007: Astronomers at the University of Michigan have found what are believed to be some of the youngest solar systems yet detected. Read more

29 November 2007: Scientists analysing data gathered by the Cassini spacecraft have confirmed the presence of heavy negative ions in the upper regions of Titan’s atmosphere. Read more

28 November 2007: Using a computer model simulation, Haruichi Washimi, a physicist at UC Riverside, has predicted when the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the "termination shock," the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed. Read more

28 November 2007: Star cluster's extreme speed puzzles astronomers. Read more

28 November 2007: Einstein's self-proclaimed "biggest blunder" -- his postulation of a cosmological constant (a force that opposes gravity and keeps the universe from collapsing) -- may not be such a blunder after all. Read more

28 November 2007: A team of researchers from NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation and the British Antarctic Survey unveiled a newly completed map of Antarctica today that is expected to revolutionize research of the continent's frozen landscape. Read more

28 November 2007: EU ministers have agreed to the full public financing of the Galileo satellite system and the brand new European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), as part of a deal on the EU's €120 billion budget for 2008. Read more

28 November 2007: The US military is working on super-powerful updates to its GPS satellite navigation technology to try to trump the rival European Galileo project which just received key funding, experts say. Read more

27 November 2007: Every month brings about seven straight days of relative safety from the flux of energetic charged particles from the sun, as the moon dips through the Earth's magnetic field. Read more

27 November 2007: Russia will build a new cosmodrome on its own territory capable of handling human spaceflight. Read more

23 November 2007: The European Space Agency (ESA) has published a call for tenders for a study on sustainability and space activities: improving the sustainability of ESA operations. Read more

23 November 2007: During the past month, Mars has doubled in brightness and it is putting a nice show for backyard stargazers. Read more

23 November 2007: SRON astronomer Floris van der Tak is the first to have observed acidic particulate clouds outside of our own Milky Way galaxy. Read more

22 November 2007: An information day on aeronautics and surface transport in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) will be held in Madrid, Spain, on 13 December. Read more

22 November 2007: Mars was covered in an ocean of molten rock for about 100 million years after the planet formed, Read more

22 November 2007: Astronomers have discovered white dwarf stars with pure carbon atmospheres. The discovery could offer a unique view into the hearts of dying stars. Read more

22 November 2007: The discoveries of large Earth-like planets outside our Solar System, so-called “super-Earths,” has prompted much speculation about just how Earth-like they may be. Read more

21 November 2007: China's lunar orbiter is set to begin switching on its science instruments. The spacecraft should help determine the thickness of the lunar soil and shed new light on the Moon's internal composition, which could help in understanding its origins. Read more

21 November 2007: China will launch its third manned space mission after next year's Beijing Olympics, a newspaper reported Tuesday. Read more

21 November 2007: NASA's Opportunity rover is showing its age. Problems have forced the agency to suspend work involving the rover's rock grinding tool and its infrared spectrometer while engineers try to work out a fix. Read more

21 November 2007: The next time you take a moonlit stroll, or admire a full, bright-white moon looming in the night sky, you might count yourself lucky. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that moons like Earth's - that formed out of tremendous collisions - are uncommon in the universe, arising at most in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems. Read more

21 November 2007: Ever wonder how NASA astronauts prepare for Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions? I wish I could say it’s rocket science, but what it really comes down to is lots of preparation. And the astronauts spend many hours practicing on intricate, full-sized models of the telescope. Read more

21 November 2007: The European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Supervisory Authority (GSA) has issued a call for proposals under the Transport (including aeronautics) part of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Read more

21 November 2007: South Korean space officials said Tuesday they plan to send an unmanned probe to the moon's orbit in 2020 and land a probe on the moon's surface in 2025. Read more

21 November 2007: A new international research alliance will tackle the question of life on other planets and study conditions and factors that have an impact on its development. Read more

20 November 2007: The Sun may be smaller than we thought, a new study argues. Read more

19 November 2007: NASA's Opportunity rover has been crippled and blinded by problems with two of its most important instruments. Read more

19 November 2007: If you haven't seen the mysteriously large comet prominent in the sky in recent weeks, better look soon, astronomers say. The erupting body and its expanding cosmic dust cloud will soon be overshadowed by a commonplace full moon. Read more

19 November 2007: On Wednesday 21 November, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) will demonstrate how improved control techniques can reduce the risk of aircraft crashes. Read more

16 November 2007: As discussions continue on where to find the EUR 3.4 billion still needed to fill the gap in the budget of Galileo, the EU's proposed satellite navigation system, stakeholders met in Brussels on 14 and 15 November in order to demonstrate their ongoing enthusiasm for the project. Read more

16 November 2007: The European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Supervisory Authority (GSA) has issued a call for proposals under the Transport (including aeronautics) part of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Read more

16 November 2007: A rocket thruster based on an engine designed to power a lunar lander on an expedition to the Moon has been successfully tested by the Northrop Grumman aerospace company in the US. Read more

16 November 2007: Mysterious plumes of plasma at the edge of the Earth's atmosphere are threatening airline navigation by throwing off GPS positioning information by up to the length of a football field. Read more

16 November 2007: The normally sedate Comet Holmes made a bright splash in the sky about two weeks ago, unexpectedly becoming a million times brighter than normal overnight and causing a stir among astronomers. Read more

15 November 2007: Data from a satellite probing the early universe is not flawed, cosmologists say, despite one radio astronomer's claim that it is hopelessly contaminated by radiation from our own galaxy. Read more

15 November 2007: NASA will use the cold, harsh, isolated landscape of Antarctica to test one of its concepts for astronaut housing on the moon. Read more

15 November 2007: Astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday relocated a newly arrived module needed to anchor European and Japanese research laboratories. Read more

15 November 2007: Small, rocky planets that could resemble the Earth or Mars may be forming around a star in the Pleiades star cluster, astronomers reported on Wednesday. Read more

14 November 2007: On a visit to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the EU's Science and Research Commissioner captured a new image of a nearby spiral galaxy called NCG-134. Read more

14 November 2007: Tantalising traces of the building blocks of life have been spotted in nearby galaxies. However, working out the identity of these carbon-containing molecules, and when they became abundant, is proving tricky, say astronomers. Read more

14 November 2007: Astronomers have defended a system intended to spot impending asteroid impacts after it mistook the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft for an incoming rock and issued an alert that a near miss was imminent. Read more

14 November 2007: A NASA satellite designed, built and controlled by the University of Colorado at Boulder is expected to help scientists resolve wide-ranging predictions about the coming solar cycle peak in 2012 and its influence on Earth's warming climate, according to the chief scientist on the project. Read more

13 November 2007: UFOs may be fodder for comedians and science fiction but there was no joking Monday when a group of pilots and officials demanded the US government reopen an investigation into unidentified flying objects. Read more

13 November 2007: Discovery and its crew returned to Earth on Wednesday and concluded a 15-day space station build and repair mission that was among the most challenging - and heroic - in shuttle history. Read more  

13 November 2007: Almost every week now, planet hunters are discovering new worlds, not in our solar system but in the far reaches of our galaxy. So how close are astronomers to finding a planet that supports life? Read more

12 November 2007: It seems super-Earths would be a pretty super place to live compared with our puny planet. Read more

12 November 2007: Forget Mars – the Red Planet's moons Phobos and Deimos could be the next stop in the solar system for humanity, according to planetary scientists. Read more

12 November 2007: During his visit to ESO's Very Large Telescope at Paranal, the European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potocnik, participated in an observing sequence and took images of a beautiful spiral galaxy. Read more

12 November 2007: International scientists within the Pierre Auger Collaboration have revealed that galactic nuclei are the most likely source of highest-energy cosmic rays. Read more

12 November 2007: Britain must try to prevent a European Union satellite navigation system from going ahead until its costs, risks and benefits have been thoroughly assessed, lawmakers said on Monday. Read more

12 November 2007: Russia has launched a project to create a new generation of spacecraft and boosters, the head of national space administration said on Friday, making clear that they would not appear on orbit before 2020. Read more

12 November 2007: Ultra-high energy cosmic rays -- particles that pack the punch of a rifle shot -- make their way to Earth from massive black holes in nearby galaxies. Read more.  

9 November 2007: The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Array (ANITA)—that plucky probe that visited SLAC last year before taking to the skies of Antarctica—is back in action. Read more

9 November 2007: The International Space Station’s crew enjoyed a day off duty Tuesday before starting a heavy schedule of spacewalks and robotics activities, which kick off with a spacewalk by Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko Friday morning. Read more

9 November 2007: The chequered destinies of Australian Idol winners underscores what astronomers have known for a long time – star formation is complicated. Read more

9 November 2007: Scientists of the Pierre Auger Collaboration announced today (Nov. 8) that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidate for the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Read more

9 November 2007: ESA’s comet chaser, Rosetta, is on its way to its second close encounter with Earth on 13 November. The spacecraft’s operators are leaving no stones unturned to make sure Earth’s gravity gives it the exact boost it needs en route to its destination. Read more

8 November 2007: The EU funded AeroSME project will hold an event on the 12 December in Brussels, Belgium, to present the large collaborative projects which are expected to be put forward for funding following the second aeronautics call of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Read more

8 November 2007: UC Davis physics professor J. Anthony Tyson will testify before Congress on Thursday, Nov. 8, on near-Earth asteroids. Read more

8 November 2007: Most people have a few gigabytes of files on their PC. In the next decade, astronomers expect to be processing 10 million gigabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array telescope. Read more

8 November 2007: China is aiming to place a 20-tonne space station into orbit around Earth in 2020, state media reported Wednesday, in the latest indication of Beijing's lofty space ambitions. Read more

7 November 2007: With the help of 14 satellites currently in orbit and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Applied Sciences Program, scientists have been able to observe the Earth’s environment to help predict and prevent infectious disease outbreaks around the world. Read more

7 November 2007: A fifth planet has been discovered around a nearby star, making it the largest planetary system known outside our own. Read more

7 November 2007: The comet that suddenly became about a million times brighter nearly two weeks ago continues to "shine" with abnormal luminosity, leaving observers puzzled over what caused the outburst and whether the comet will perform an encore in the coming months. Read more

7 November 2007: Half a dozen possible landing sites have been selected for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), due to launch late in 2009. Read more

2 November 2007: Some puzzling land formations on Mars's equator could be huge glacier-like deposits of frozen water, new radar observations suggest. Read more

2 November 2007: Supermassive black holes can produce powerful winds that shape a galaxy and determine their own growth. Read more

2 November 2007: A pair of galaxies, known collectively as Arp 87, is one of hundreds of interacting and merging galaxies known in our nearby Universe. Read more

2 November 2007: As Tropical Storm Noel churns off Florida's east coast, NASA and university scientists have announced they have developed a promising new technique for estimating the intensity of tropical cyclones from space. Read more

2 November 2007: NASA chief Michael Griffin has promised to make public the results of a survey on US airline safety that suggests that near-collisions, engine failures and other serious problems are much more common than previously thought. Read more

2 November 2007: China's lunar exploration is to drive scientific and technological innovation, and not for military purposes, space officials said on Thursday, giving a glowing report on the country's moon-bound orbiter. Read more

1 November 2007: Magnetic fields may stop young stars self-destructing. Read more

1 November 2007: When matter gets swallowed by a black hole, it could fall into another universe contained inside the black hole, or get trapped inside a wormhole-like connection to a second black hole, a new study suggests. Read more

1 November 2007: Usually comets are challenging little no-see-um fuzzballs. To see one often requires a dark sky, a good chart or a telescope that can "go-to" the object automatically. Read more

1 November 2007: The UK's leading team of planet-hunting astronomers, the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP), today announced the discovery of three new planets. Read more

1 November 2007: Renegade Materials Corp. [profile] said Monday it will start up production in January at a new plant being built to commercialize nanostructured composite materials for military and aerospace markets. Read more

31 October 2007: A solar power panel ripped as it was being unfurled from a newly reinstalled girder on the International Space Station on Tuesday, forcing NASA to halt the operation and throwing expansion plans for the station into doubt. Read more

31 October 2007: A promontory nicknamed "Cape Verde" can be seen jutting out from the walls of Victoria Crater in this approximate true-color picture taken by the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Read more

31 October 2007: Using two NASA satellites, astronomers have discovered the heftiest known black hole to orbit a star. The new black hole, with a mass 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, is more massive than scientists expected for a black hole that formed from a dying star. Read more

31 October 2007: The European Space Agency (ESA) will hold its third European Space Cryogenics Workshop from 27 to 29 November in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Read more

31 October 2007: The European Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Supervisory Authority has issued a call for tenders for a market study and preliminary business plan for EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service. Read more

30 October 2007: The engine of an experimental Moon lander exploded on the launch pad on Sunday, dashing Armadillo Aerospace's hopes of winning up to $1.35 million in NASA prize money. Read more

30 October 2007: The US shuttle Discovery will likely stay in orbit a day longer than planned to give astronauts time to examine a mechanical glitch on the International Space Station, NASA said Monday. Read more

30 October 2007: Stars always evolve in the universe in large groups, known as clusters. Astronomers distinguish these formations by their age and size. The question of how star clusters are created from interstellar gas clouds and why they then develop in different ways has now been answered by researchers at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn with the aid of computer simulations. Read more

29 October 2007: The European Parliament has voted to boost funding for the European Institute of Technology (EIT) and Galileo, the European satellite navigation system, at its first reading vote on the draft budget for 2008. Read more

29 October 2007: Aerospace company Rocketplane Global has unveiled a new, roomier design for its suborbital space plane, which it hopes to send passengers on by the end of 2010. Read more

29 October 2007: A mock lunar lander built by Armadillo Aerospace stands to win $1.35 million at the X Prize Cup this weekend, where it will be the sole entrant in a NASA-sponsored rocketry contest for the second year running. Read more 

29 October 2007: A comet usually too faint to be seen with the naked eye has brightened by a factor of a million since Tuesday. Read more

29 October 2007: Bigelow Aerospace intends to spur development of a commercial space vehicle to take people into Earth orbit by offering to sign a contract worth $760 million with any company that can meet their criteria, company president Robert Bigelow says. Read more 

29 October 2007: US astronauts completed the second of five spacewalks Sunday, beginning the relocation of a key supporting truss but also detecting a problem with one of the mechanisms supporting an key energy unit of the International Space Station. Read more

29 October 2007: The STS-120 and Expedition 16 crews entered the Harmony module for the first time at 8:24 a.m EDT after Mission Specialist Paolo Nespoli and Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson opened the hatches.Read more

26 October 2007: The greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history also may have been one of the slowest, according to a study that casts further doubt on the extinction-by-meteor theory. Read more

26 October 2007: Scientists from the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) and the University of Cambridge may have discovered an example of a cosmic defect, a remnant from the Big Bang called a texture Read more

26 October 2007: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will use a new advanced technology network interface called "SpaceWire" that enables the components on the telescope to work more efficiently and more reliably with each other. Read more

26 October 2007: Data from ERS-2, ESA’s veteran spacecraft, is experiencing an increasing demand as the 12-year-old mission’s products and services are playing a vital role in the initial activities for Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, such as the MARitime Security Service project which addresses the European concern of illegal marine trafficking. Read more

25 October 2007: Stars in dwarf spheroidal galaxies behave in a way that suggests the galaxies are utterly dominated by dark matter, University of Michigan astronomers have found. Read more

25 October 2007: The STS-120 crew members completed the day's scheduled inspections of Space Shuttle Discovery’s heat shield before noon EDT. They used Discovery’s robotic arm and an attached boom extension to check the spacecraft’s underside, nose cap and leading edges of the wings as well as hard to reach shuttle surfaces. Read more

25 October 2007: A narrow belt harboring moonlets as large as football stadiums discovered in Saturn's outermost ring probably resulted when a larger moon was shattered by a wayward asteroid or comet eons ago. Read more

24 October 2007: The space shuttle Discovery launched successfully on Tuesday, kicking off a two-month refurbishment of the International Space Station that will give Europe its first permanent laboratory in orbit. Read more

24 October 2007: European physicists said Tuesday they had sent an elusive particle known as a neutrino on a 730-kilometer (456-mile) trip under the Earth's crust and taken a snapshot of the instant it slammed into lab detectors. Read more

24 October 2007: A spectacular new image shows how complex a star’s afterlife can be. By studying the details of this image made from a long observation by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers can better understand how some stars die and disperse elements like oxygen into the next generation of stars and planets. Read more

24 October 2007: In a landmark test flight, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and a team of research partners this month successfully launched a solar telescope to an altitude of 120,000 feet, borne by a balloon larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Read more

24 October 2007: Researchers from Southwest Research Institute and the University of Colorado at Boulder have developed a new model that postulates the structure and magnetospheric processes at Jupiter are significantly different from those at Earth. Read more

24 October 2007: China's preparations to launch its first lunar orbiter are on schedule for lift-off later this week Read more

24 October 2007: Malaysia's first man in space said on Tuesday the gravitational force on his return to earth was "like a big elephant on my chest" after a computer glitch made his re-entry steeper than planned. Read more

23 October 2007: A clearer idea of Europe's next destinations in space emerged at a meeting of the European Space Agency (ESA) Space Science Advisory Committee on 17 and 18 October. Read more

23 October 2007: Vast magnetic cocoons associated with galaxies whose black holes have stopped eating may be responsible for accelerating charged particles called cosmic rays to within a whisker of the speed of light. Read more

23 October 2007: A successful re-ignition of the Ariane 5 upper stage engine performed during the most recent mission has consolidated Ariane 5's readiness for the launch of the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle. Read more

19 October 2007: NASA has terminated an agreement with Rocketplane Kistler, one of two private companies that had won agency funding to develop supply ships for the International Space Station. Read more

19 October 2007: One of the two satellites of the Double Star mission was decommissioned on 14 October after its designed orbit lifetime came to an end. Read more

19 October 2007: Some 36 projects have been selected for funding following the first aeronautics and air transport call for proposals under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Read more

18 October 2007: A black hole as heavy as almost 16 Suns has set a new weight record for black holes that form from collapsing stars. Read more

18 October 2007: Saturn's magnificent ring system continues to puzzle astronomers, with new observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft revealing dust rings that always point at the Sun and extra mass hiding in one of the brightest rings, which may be much older than previously thought. Read more 

18 October 2007: Astronomers in Taiwan have named a small astral body they discovered between Mars and Jupiter Chiayi after the county where their observatory is located. Read more

18 October 2007: Are the best times over, at least for life, on Mars? Read more 

18 October 2007: Cosmology and astrophysics may help guide physicists in building a model of “unparticles,” a newly proposed sector of physics. Read more

18 October 2007: The first Airbus A380 superjumbo landed in Singapore on Wednesday, as the countdown began for next week's maiden commercial flight of the biggest passenger airliner ever built. Read more

18 October 2007: NASA senior managers Tuesday completed a detailed review of space shuttle Discovery’s readiness for flight and selected Oct. 23 as the official launch date. Read more

18 October 2007: After expanding across Earth, the Internet is now set to spread into outer space to reach parts no network has gone before, one of its co-creators predicted Wednesday. Read more

17 October 2007: China hopes to join an international space station project that already counts leading space powers like the United States and Russia as its members. Read more

17 October 2007: China will launch its first lunar probe at the end of this month with preparations already in their final stages, a senior official said Tuesday. Read more

17 October 2007: A bizarre galaxy thought to have started forming stars billions of years after its peers is not such a late bloomer after all, new Hubble observations reveal. Read more

17 October 2007: Another misty morning in Xanadu. At -179 °Celsius, this bright continent on Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, is much too cold for liquid water. Read more

17 October 2007: Neutrinos are tiny -- really, really tiny -- particles of matter. They are so small, in fact, that they pass between, and even through, atoms without interacting at all. Neutrinos are everywhere. Read more

17 October 2007: Risa Wechsler of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) and her collaborators have devised a powerful technique to study how interactions between galaxies affect star formation. Read more

17 October 2007: To enhance the Hubble Space Telescope’s science capabilities, two new instruments – the Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph - will be installed during the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission to the observatory in August 2008. Read more

17 October 2007: Electrons trapped in the outer Van Allen radiation belt, a doughnut-shaped region of high-energy particles that surrounds Earth, kept in place by our planet's magnetic field, can have velocities approaching the speed of light. Read more

17 October 2007: Quimby discovered the current record holder, supernova 2006gy, last year as part of his Texas Supernova Search project. Now he announces that a supernova he discovered earlier in the project is actually twice as luminous. Read more

16 October 2007: Echoing the re-discovery of America by the Spanish long after an earlier Viking reconnaissance, astronomers have learned that a recently observed asteroid - one that could potentially hit the Earth - was actually first observed nearly a half-century ago. Read more

15 October 2007: Japan's Kaguya spacecraft has released its second mini-probe into orbit around the Moon. Read more

15 October 2007: A new energy research centre has opened at Port Talbot in Wales. The Gas Turbine Research Centre (GTRC) at the University of Cardiff's School of Engineering will investigate cleaner and more efficient ways of generating power for electricity and aircraft. Read more

12 October 2007: The first radio telescope dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has formally started operations. Read more

12 October 2007: A futuristic scheme to collect solar energy on satellites and beam it to Earth has gained a large supporter in the US military. Read more 

12 October 2007: Another misty morning in Xanadu. At -179 °Celsius, this bright continent on Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, is much too cold for liquid water. Instead, the morning mist consists of tiny droplets of methane. Read more

12 October 2007: Astronomer Robert Quimby has again found the most luminous supernova. Quimby discovered the current record holder, supernova 2006gy, last year as part of his Texas Supernova Search project. Read more 

12 October 2007: The best views of the hydrocarbon lakes and seas on Saturn's moon Titan taken by the Cassini spacecraft are being released today. Read more

11 October 2007: Did ancient oceans on Venus last long enough for potential life to have emerged? The answer could be locked inside a hardy mineral called tremolite, which future robotic missions to our neighbouring planet could find and study. Read more

11 October 2007: Among scientists, it is widely believed that there is no such thing as an aether – a medium pervading all space that allows light waves to propagate, similar to how sound needs air or water – but a part of its spirit may live on. Read more

11 October 2007: A recent analysis of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft provides conclusive evidence that the jets of fine, icy particles spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus originate from the hottest spots on the moon's "tiger stripe" fractures that straddle the moon's south polar region. Read more

11 October 2007: NASA's Dawn spacecraft successfully completed the first test of its ion propulsion system over the weekend. The system is vital to the success of Dawn's 8-year, 1.6 billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) journey to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. Read more

11 October 2007: Planetary scientists on both sides of the Atlantic have tracked down a rare molecule in the atmospheres of both Mars and Venus. The molecule, an exotic form of carbon dioxide, could affect the way the greenhouse mechanism works on Venus. Read more

10 October 2007:NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has found hints that Jupiter's tiniest moons have been obliterated. Read more

10 October 2007:Focusing sunlight onto an asteroid with space-based mirrors is the best way to deflect Earth-bound space rocks, a new study finds. Read more 

10 October 2007:Recent observations from NASA and Japanese X-ray observatories have helped clarify one of the long-standing mysteries in astronomy – the origin of cosmic rays. Read more

10 October 2007:The hit song that proclaimed, "All we are is dust in the wind," may have some cosmic truth to it. New findings from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that space dust – the same stuff that makes up living creatures and planets – was manufactured in large quantities in the winds of black holes that populated our early universe. Read more

9 October 2007: Blame the Sun for the mysterious dark blemishes on Saturn's moon Iapetus. Read more

9 October 2007: NASA scientists are on the trail of Iapetus' mysterious dark side, which seems to be home to a bizarre "runaway" process that is transporting vaporized water ice from the dark areas to the white areas of the Saturnian moon. Read more  

9 October 2007: Using the supersharp radio "vision" of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), astronomers have made the most precise measurement ever of the distance to a famous star-forming region. Read more

9 October 2007: Undergraduate astronomy students at the University of Washington combing through images from a specialized telescope have discovered more than 1,300 asteroids that had never before been observed. Read more

8 October 2007: In the week that saw 50 years since the beginning of the space race, UK researchers have underlined the relevance that space technologies can have for other areas with the announcement of new research on detecting tuberculosis (TB) using technologies developed for space missions. Read more

8 October 2007: The average brightness of stellar explosions that astronomers rely on to measure dark energy – the mysterious force causing our universe to expand faster and faster – has actually changed over time, a new study reports. Read more

8 October 2007: What caused a fleeting but highly powerful burst of radio waves that originated beyond the Milky Way? Suspects so far include the merger of neutron stars and the complete evaporation of a black hole. Read more 

8 October 2007: Pluto and its large moon Charon may have been bowled over when they were struck by wayward space rocks in the past, a new study suggests. Read more

5 October 2007: The Giant Magellan Telescope, which is in a race to become the world's largest telescope, will be built in central Chile, officials announced on Thursday. Read more

5 October 2007: As NASA revamps Launch Complex 39B to host the new Orion spacecraft and Ares I rocket of the Constellation Program, engineers are preparing to install a new kind of departure system to evacuate astronauts. Read more

5 October 2007: A tiny galaxy, nearly halfway across the universe, the smallest in size and mass known to exist at that distance, has been identified by an international team of scientists led by two from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Read more

5 October 2007: Scientists have identified and described stem cells specific to several tissues and organs of the body — key master cells that give rise to the specialized cell types characteristic of that organ. But to date, it hasn’t been possible to pinpoint functioning stem cells in the stomach, either in laboratory animals or people. Read more

5 October 2007: An Earth-like planet is likely forming 424 light-years away in a star system called HD 113766, say astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Read more

4 October 2007: Astronomers have found the most Sun-like star yet, and they say it is an ideal place to hunt for alien civilisations.  Read more

4 October 2007: Going from here to there doesn't always mean passing through points in between, despite what philosophers might say. Quantum objects have more mysterious ways to get around. Read more

4 October 2007: Color images documenting the past 10 billion years of galactic evolution were distributed online this week as part of the first public release of data from a massive project to map a distant region of the universe that combines the efforts of nearly 100 researchers from around the world, including the University of Pittsburgh. Read more

4 October 2007: NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos have agreed to fly two Russian scientific instruments on NASA spacecraft that will conduct unprecedented robotic missions to the moon and Mars. Read more

3 October 2007: Researcher presents origin-of-life theory for young Earth, supports life on other planets. Read more

3 October 2007: If space travelers ever visit Saturn's largest moon, they will find a tropical world where temperatures plunge to minus 274 degrees Fahrenheit, methane rains from the sky and dunes of ice or tar cover the planet's most arid regions. These conditions reflect a cold mirror image of Earth's tropical climate, according to scientists at the University of Chicago. Read more

3 October 2007: The gigantic nebula NGC 3603 hosts one of the most prominent, massive, young clusters in the Milky Way. Hubble has been observing this prime location for star formation studies. Read more 

3 October 2007: We’ve all been taught that our bodies, the Earth, and in fact all matter in the universe is composed of tiny building blocks called atoms. Now imagine if this weren’t the case. This mind-bending concept is at the core of the scientific research that one Florida State University professor -- and hundreds of his colleagues all over the world -- are pursuing. Read more

3 October 2007: Boris Shustov, director of the Institute of Astronomy, said at a forum that the Apophis asteroid could have a bigger impact than an asteroid that hit Siberia in 1908, the Novosti news agency reported. Read more

3 October 2007: The amount of dark matter left over from the early universe may be less than previously believed. Read more

2 October 2007: European scientists have unveiled their vision for European astronomy over the next two decades. 'A science vision for European astronomy' was drawn up by the EU-funded ASTRONET project, which brings together 17 funding agencies from across Europe with the goal of consolidating Europe's position as a world leader in astronomy. Read more

2 October 2007: A wave of charged particles hurtling from the Sun rips off a comet's tail in a new video from NASA's STEREO spacecraft. Read more

2 October 2007: Could a naked singularity, the bare core of a black hole, be sitting at the centre of our galaxy? A new study shows how astronomers could detect such a brazen object – which is so dense it would shred the known laws of physics. Read more

2 October 2007: NASA's blueprints for an outpost on the moon are shaping up. The agency's Lunar Architecture Team has been hard at work, looking at concepts for habitation, rovers, and space suits. Read more

2 October 2007: Comets are made of the most primitive stuff in the solar system. As hunks of rock and ice that never coalesced into more planets, they give researchers clues to the evolution of solar systems. Read more

2 October 2007: Astronomers at the University of Rochester are pointing to three nearby stars they say may hold “embryonic planets”—a missing link in planet-formation theories. Read more

1 October 2007: Astronomers studying archival data from an Australian radio telescope have discovered a powerful, short-lived burst of radio waves that they say indicates an entirely new type of astronomical phenomenon. Read more

28 September 2007: Adding even a small amount of carbon nanotubes can go a long way toward enhancing the strength, integrity, and safety of plastic materials widely used in engineering applications, according to a new study. Read more

28 September 2007: Astronomers are scrambling to understand what caused a fleeting but extremely powerful burst of radio waves that originated beyond the Milky Way. Read more

28 September 2007: A small space capsule has been lost in Earth orbit after a space tether experiment went awry on Tuesday. Read more

28 September 2007: NASA's Dawn spacecraft has launched on a mission to investigate two titans of the asteroid belt. Read more

28 September 2007: Though we can't see it, dark matter is supposed to make up 22 per cent of the universe. Now it turns out it might not exist at all. Read more

28 September 2007: The Expedition 15 crew of the International Space Station moved a docked Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft Thursday to make room for the Expedition 16 crew's arrival. Read more

28 September 2007: NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached its science team's first destination for the rover inside Victoria Crater, information received from Mars late Tuesday confirms. Read more

28 September 2007: Using ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer and its unique ability to see small details, astronomers have uncovered a flat, nearly edge-on disc of silicates in the heart of the magnificent Ant Nebula. Read more

28 September 2007: An Italian-led venture began building a key control centre for Europe's biggest single space program on Thursday, dismissing fears the project would struggle to compete effectively with its U.S. rival. Read more

27 September 2007: University of St Andrews astronomers have succeeded in tracing the magnetic web that binds newly forming stars to their surrounding gas and dust. The findings will improve understanding of how stars, including the Sun, form. Read more

27 September 2007: Two years ago, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft blasted a hole in Comet Tempel 1, offering researchers their first look inside a comet. One small problem: The cloud of debris was so thick no one could clearly see the crater. But now the dust has cleared and another NASA spacecraft is returning to the scene to examine the hole Deep Impact wrought. Read more 

27 September 2007: Launch and flight teams are in final preparations for the planned Sept. 27 liftoff from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., of NASA's Dawn mission. The Dawn spacecraft will venture into the heart of the asteroid belt, where it will document in exceptional detail the mammoth rocky asteroid Vesta, and then, the even bigger icy dwarf planet Ceres. Read more

26 September 2007: The European Aviation Safety Agency has issued a call for tenders for an investigation of the technical feasibility and safety benefit of a light aeroplane operational Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) system. Read more

26 September 2007: Space flight has been shown to have a profound impact on human physiology as the body adapts to zero gravity environments. Read more

26 September 2007: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has selected 17 space radiation projects by U.S. researchers for development. Read more

26 September 2007: The struggling European navigation system Galileo faces yet another delay with a three-month postponement of its second satellite launch, a press report said Monday. Read more

24 September 2007: The European Commission has recommended that the European Community take complete responsibility for funding the deployment of Galileo, Europe's satellite navigation system, warning of the consequences of shelving the project. Read more

24 September 2007: Scientists at the UK's University of Manchester are busy developing technologies for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a giant telescope that the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) described as 'a machine that transforms our view of the universe'. Read more

24 September 2007: Add this to the reasons why we need to revisit the moon: it may be the best place to find the earliest evidence of life on Earth. Read more

24 September 2007: Some neutron stars have such powerful magnetic fields that they rip themselves open due to magnetic forces, a new study confirms. Read more 

24 September 2007: Dramatic features of the Martian landscape that appear to have experienced catastrophic flooding may have been covered over by lava flows, new research suggests. Read more

24 September 2007: Fifty years after the launch of the first man-made satellite, the global space industry gathers in India next week to find ways to benefit humanity -- and make money in the process. Read more

20 September 2007: Herschel, Europe’s infrared space observatory is being presented to the media today in a joint press event by ESA and Astrium in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Two of the satellite’s most fundamental modules, its ‘heart’ and ‘brain’, have now been mated. Read more

20 September 2007: Europe's proposed multibillion-dollar Galileo satellite navigation project could be salvaged with the help of unspent EU funds and without additional taxpayer money, the European Commission said Wednesday. Read more

20 September 2007: A rocket carrying a next-generation Earth-imaging satellite blasted off Tuesday on a mission that promises to zoom in on objects as small as 18 inches across. Read more

20 September 2007: Were vast numbers of black holes spawned during our universe's earliest moments? It is an intriguing idea, made possible by the extreme densities associated with the big bang. Read more

20 September 2007: The University of Manchester is developing high-speed data crunching technology that will be crucial to the success of one of the greatest scientific projects of the 21st century. Read more

19 September 2007: The International Space Station crew was to jettison a cargo spacecraft loaded with trash Tuesday, allowing it to incinerate in the Earth's atmosphere. Read more

19 September 2007: An international team of astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope has discovered that the south pole of Neptune is much hotter than the rest of the planet. Read more

19 September 2007: Japan launched its first lunar probe on Friday, nicknamed Kaguya after a fairy-tale princess, in the latest move in a new race with China, India and the United States to explore the moon. Read more

18 September 2007: DID colossal spinning loops of energy whip up the magnetic fields that thread through galaxies and may even stretch across intergalactic space? That's the idea being put forward to explain the universe's mysterious magnetic fields. Read more

18 September 2007: The Milky Way's two best-known companion galaxies are recent immigrants rather than the long-time neighbours they were thought to be, a new study suggests. Read more 

18 September 2007: Leaky hydraulic seals on space shuttle Discovery must be replaced, and the extra work may end up delaying next month's flight, a NASA official said Monday. Read more

18 September 2007: Key components of a new approach to discover life on Mars were successfully launched into space Friday as part of a twelve-day, low-Earth orbit experiment to assess their survivability in the space radiation environment -- a prelude future journeys to Mars. Read more

17 September: A conference to discuss humankind's presence in space will take place on 11 and 12 October in Vienna, Austria. Read more

17 September: For the first time, astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a star which is coming to the end of its life, in a study which offers clues regarding the eventual fate of our own planet. Read more

17 September: Gamma-ray bursts, the biggest bangs in the cosmos since the big bang itself, were unexpectedly common in the early universe. This might tell us something crucial about the conditions that trigger these titanic fireballs. Read more

17 September: The mysterious dark matter that fills the universe could be made of the same particles that put the "big" in the big bang - explaining both inflation and dark matter in a single stroke. Read more

17 September: An anti-satellite test by China in January, and increased US opposition to restrictions on space weapons, were cited as two main global threats by "Space Security 2007," the fourth annual report by the Space Security Index. Read more

17 September: Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered in a single pass about a dozen otherwise invisible galaxies halfway across the Universe. The discovery, based on a technique that exploits a first-class instrument, represents a major breakthrough in the field of galaxy 'hunting'. Read more

14 September 2007: NASA has awarded five one-month extensions of its Johnson Space Center operations support contract to the Computer Sciences Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas. Read more

14 September 2007: While perhaps not quite as well known as its star formation cousin of Orion, the Corona Australis region (containing, at its heart, the Coronet Cluster) is one of the nearest and most active regions of ongoing star formation. Read more

14 September 2007: The universe’s earliest stars may hold clues to the nature of dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the universe’s matter but doesn’t interact with light, cosmologists report. Read more

14 September 2007: Cassini scientists are poring through hundreds of images returned from the 10 September fly-by of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus. Read more

14 September 2007: Princeton Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Fred Dryer has a lofty goal: end the nation's reliance on oil for jet travel. Read more

13 September 2007: The Mars rover Opportunity has made its first tentative dip into a giant crater called Victoria, which should reveal conditions farther into the Martian past than anything the rover has seen before. Read more

13 September 2007: It has a mere dribble of water compared to Earth, yet over the past few million years Mars has experienced periodic ice ages that have shaped layers of ice lurking beneath its dusty surface. Read more

13 September 2007: A planet that was nearly engulfed when its host star swelled up into a red giant has lived to tell the tale, a new study reports. The research will help shed light on whether the Earth will survive a similar onslaught 5 billion years from now. Read more

13 September 2007: Using NASA’s Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellites, astronomers have discovered one of the most bizarre planet-mass objects ever found. Read more

13 September 2007: Astronomers have observed neon in disks of dust and gas swirling around sunlike stars for the first time. Read more

13 September 2007: Cassini completed its closest flyby of the odd moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007. The spacecraft flew about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Iapetus' surface and is returning amazing views of the bizarre moon. Read more

13 September 2007: An international consortium of scientists has made the first detection of an elusive particle emitted by the Sun, which should help confirm theories as to how our star functions, France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said on Wednesday. Read more

13 September 2007: Mars has experienced 40 major ice ages over the past five million years, when vast areas of its porous soil froze and thawed again, according to computer simulations released on Wednesday. Read more

13 September 2007: NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been positioned at Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 17B atop a Delta II rocket for its launch from Florida later this month. Read more

12 September 2007: Did the colossal black hole at the centre of the Milky Way devour its baby brother 120 million years ago? Possibly, says a team led by Warren Brown of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Read more

12 September 2007: Two months after surviving a giant dust storm, one of NASA's robotic rovers on Mars began a risky drive Tuesday into a crater blasted open by a meteor eons ago. Read more

12 September 2007: Cluster data has helped provide scientists with a new view of magnetospheric processes, challenging existing theories about magnetic substorms that cause aurorae and perturbations in GPS signals. Read more

11 September 2007:Air travel could soon become more interesting thanks to an onboard picture show. Read more

11 September 2007:The European Commission has published a cancellation to its call for tenders for a concession for the deployment and operation phases of the Galileo programme. Read more

11 September 2007:A conference on areas and mechanisms for collaboration between Turkish and European actors in space activities will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on 22 and 23 October. Read more

11 September 2007:"I am a heretic," Cristiano Germani announced to an audience of cosmologists last month. Few would disagree, as he is proposing a radical alternative to standard cosmology: a universe with no big bang creation moment, and no rapid inflation. Rather than a big bang, he suggests a slingshot. Read more

11 September 2007:A series of recent shuttle missions have added to the International Space Station's exterior with new elements for its main truss. Now, Discovery will take into orbit a connecting module that will increase the orbiting laboratory's interior space. Read more

11 September 2007:The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing the first of three Solar Dynamic Observatories to monitor the sun's ultraviolet brightness. Read more

7 September 2007: A new turbulence detection system now being tested is successfully alerting pilots to patches of rough air as they fly through clouds. Read more

7 September 2007: Cassini will make its only close flyby of Saturn's odd, two-toned, walnut-shaped moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007, at about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the surface. Read more

7 September 2007: The N