Nasa | featured news

NASA's dead six-ton satellite fell to Earth early Saturday morning, starting its fiery death plunge somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean....

Friday appears to be re-entry day for NASA’s falling UARS satellite — a school-bus size spacecraft that will shoot its way into Earth’s atmosphere. NASA, the U.S. military and amateur astronomers are now able to say it won't come down over North America.

The Tatooine-like world about the size of Saturn is a frozen mass of rock and gas about 200 light years from Earth. NASA astronomers say it was discovered by the Kepler spacecraft launched in 2009. The desert planet of Tatooine is home to all manner of wonderful creatures — womp rats and banthas and jawas.

The design for NASA’s newest rocket harkens back to the giant workhorse liquid rockets of the past, but the destinations will be farther and the rocket more powerful.

A pair of spacecraft rocketed toward the moon Saturday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what’s inside Earth’s orbiting companion — all the way down to the core. “I could hardly be happier,” said the lead scientist, Maria Zuber. After two days of delays and almost another, “I was trying to be as calm as I could be.”

Remarkable new images of the Apollo landing sites on the Moon have just been released by Nasa.

A report by the National Academy of Sciences encourages more resources to deal with the growing problem of space junk.

The first rock a NASA rover looked at when it arrived at a crater on Mars was unlike any looked at on the planet before, scientists said... And the first rock it looked at has already opened a new chapter in the study of Mars, NASA scientists said Thursday. On a telephone news conference, mission scientists giddily described that rock: full of zinc and bromine, elements that, at least for rocks on Earth, would be suggestive of geology formed with heat and water.

Astronauts may need to take the unprecedented step of temporarily abandoning the International Space Station if last week's Russian launch accident prevents new crews from flying there this fall....

NASA's surviving Mars rover Opportunity has reached the rim of a 14-mile-wide crater where the robot geologist will examine rocks older than any it has seen in its seven years on the surface of the red planet, scientists said Wednesday....