Astronomy, Science | featured news

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.

Researchers from the Geneva astronomical observatory have discovered a planet which they say is one of the best candidates for the ability to support life.

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

An international astronomy team reports the closest exploding star seen in four decades.

Clouds may make a world orbiting a nearby star suitable for life, reports an international astronomer team.

Scientists have found Earth's oldest fossils in Australia and say their microscopic discovery is convincing evidence that cells and bacteria were able to thrive in an oxygen-free world more than 3.4 billion years ago.

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....

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: The spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a swirling maw of raw power, measuring 50,000 light-years across. So why on earth do astronomers call it "fluffy"?

In a spectacle that might have beguiled poets, lovers and songwriters if only they had been around to see it, Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think. But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the "big splat."...

NASA's upcoming mission to Jupiter can't get much greener than this: a solar-powered, windmill-shaped spacecraft....