Nasa, Earth | featured news

Two astronauts made history Friday as the final spacewalkers of NASA's 30-year shuttle program.

A NASA spacecraft will reach out and touch an asteroid and send pieces back to Earth.

After working for half a century and spending £500m, scientists last week revealed that they have detected strange fluctuations in Earth's orbit. Space-time is bent and then twisted round our planet as it rotates, announced researchers with Nasa's Gravity Probe B project.

For the first time, Earth has a regular orbiting eye-in-the-sky spying on the solar system's smallest and strangest planet, Mercury.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake that ravaged Japan also shortened Earth's day by just over one-millionth of a second (1.8 microseconds to be exact), according to NASA. It also shifted the Earth's axis by about 6.5 inches.

The discovery of a strange bacteria that can use arsenic as one of its nutrients widens the scope for finding new forms of life on Earth and possibly beyond.

The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest ever on Earth according to data released by scientists at NASA.

A small asteroid will buzz the Earth late Friday night, flying just inside the orbit of the moon. It should fly safely by our home planet, according to a crack team of NASA space rock trackers.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft buzzed Titan last year, coming close enough to taste the Saturnian moon's atmosphere. The data acquired has implications for our understanding of life throughout the galaxy, as well as Earth's own past.