space exploration – News Stories About space exploration - Page 16

Sep 24, 2007 12:15 PM CDT

Hidden Galaxies Come to Light

Scientists discover star systems obscured by quasars

(Newser) - Astronomers have added 14 “invisible galaxies” to their map of the heavens, thanks to an imaginative breakthrough and a massive telescope. Researchers realized that some galaxies might be hidden by the bright lights of quasars behind them, so they scanned quasar data for “dips” where those lights might...

Mars Rover Steps Into Crater

Sep 13, 2007 6:00 PM CDT

Mars Rover Steps Into Crater

NASA vehicle got second chance, after withstanding a two-month dust storm

(Newser) - The dust has finally settled on Mars, and NASA's Mars rover Opportunity took its first steps Tuesday 13 feet into the half-mile-wide Victoria Crater—and then backed out after slipping beyond acceptable levels. With Opportunity's six wheels perched over the lip of the crater, researchers paused the operation in order...

Russia Shoots For the Moon

Sep 3, 2007 12:10 PM CDT

Russia Shoots For the Moon

Cash-strapped space agency aims to send a man to the moon by 2025

(Newser) - Russia has announced a plan to put a man (or woman) on the moon by 2025, reports ABC. The cash-strapped Russian space agency also plans a permanent moon base and a Mars mission. "The Russians have some big ideas, but their space program is coming up slowly from being...

NASA Eyes Endeavor Damage

Aug 11, 2007 4:01 PM CDT

NASA Eyes Endeavor Damage

Engineers say ice chunk hit shuttle's underbelly, could endanger re-entry

(Newser) - Endeavour's astronauts finished their first spacewalk today by installing a 2-ton beam on the back of the international space station, the AP reports. Meanwhile NASA engineers inspected troubling images of a gash in shuttle Endeavour’s heat shield caused, they believe, by an ice chunk that flew off the fuel...

US Teacher Headed
for Space

Aug 6, 2007 8:02 AM CDT

US Teacher Headed for Space

NASA readies educator 21 years after Challenger disaster

(Newser) - NASA is sending another schoolteacher into space, 21 years after the Challenger disaster killed educator Christa McAuliffe. Barbara Morgan, a former Idaho schoolteacher and now a fully trained astronaut, will spend most of the trip transferring cargo to the International Space Station and about six hours on educational pursuits. When...

Robot Geologist Heads to Mars

Aug 4, 2007 7:05 AM CDT

Robot Geologist Heads to Mars

NASA launches lander with years-long mission to red planet

(Newser) - An unmanned rocket carrying a robotic excavation machine is on its way to Mars following a successful launch from Cape Canaveral this morning. The AP reports that the Phoenix Mars Lander should arrive on Mars in May, 2008, when it will collect and analyze soil and ice in search of...

Europe Seeks Mars
Test Volunteers

Jun 20, 2007 5:31 PM CDT

Europe Seeks Mars Test Volunteers

Wanted: 12 people to live in a mock-up 'spacecraft' for 500 days

(Newser) - The European Space Agency is recruiting 12 volunteers to spend 17 months living and working in a series of interconnected modules that simulate an inter-planetary mission to Mars. The 'spaceship' is 19,250 cubic feet and is located at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow.

Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star

Jun 5, 2007 8:51 AM CDT

Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star

Failed star has temperature a tenth of the sun's

(Newser) - Scientists are over the moon with the discovery of a cold brown dwarf in the Cetus constellation. The star-like body, spotted by a British team using the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii, is the coldest of its kind ever seen, the BBC reports, tipping thermometers at just 800 degrees F, a...

China Helps Nigeria Into Space

May 24, 2007 7:10 AM CDT

China Helps Nigeria Into Space

Excluded by US, Beijing builds satellites for developing countries

(Newser) - China is launching its own space program, after years of getting a cold shoulder from NASA. Beijing is developing satellite technology for developing nations—the same nations it's looking to for resources to fuel its runaway economic growth, the New York Times notes. Last week saw the launch of a...

NASA Reveals Superpowered Telescope

May 11, 2007 4:38 PM CDT

NASA Reveals Superpowered Telescope

Giant camera will replace Hubble, see across universe

(Newser) - NASA has uncovered a prototype for a new telescope that will outmagnify the dominant Hubble. The James Webb Space Telescope will cost $4.5 billion and float nearly a million miles from Earth when it launches in six years; its supercharged hexagonal mirror will transmit images of the farthest and...

Astronaut
Wally Schirra Dies at 84

May 3, 2007 2:14 PM CDT

Astronaut Wally Schirra Dies at 84

Schirra the third American to orbit the earth, the fifth in space

(Newser) - Astronaut Wally Schirra, a reporter once said, geared up for space flight with "the ease of preparing for a family picnic." The third American to orbit the earth and the fifth ever to fly into space, Shirra died today. He was 84.

Final Frontier Tests Terra Firma Ethics

May 1, 2007 7:49 PM CDT

Final Frontier Tests Terra Firma Ethics

NASA ponders death, sex during long space voyages

(Newser) - As NASA plans a three-year manned mission to Mars during the next three decades, Oregon Trail ethics are being updated. What do you do with bodies of pioneers who don't make it? A new document on crew health from the space agency deals with death and interment where no man...

Stephen Hawking
Test-Drives Zero Gravity

Apr 27, 2007 12:32 PM CDT

Stephen Hawking Test-Drives Zero Gravity

(Newser) - Paralyzed super-physicist Stephen Hawking completed a zero-gravity flight off the Florida coast yesterday—floating weightless and free of his wheelchair for 25-second busts. "It was amazing," Hawking said after the flight. "Space, here I come!" The American firm normally charges $3,750 for the experience,...

Earth-Like Planet Could Sustain Life

Apr 25, 2007 7:29 AM CDT

Earth-Like Planet Could Sustain Life

Scientists claim major breakthrough in search for extraterrestrial life

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered a planet that can sustain liquid water, the prerequisite for life as we understand it. Named Gliese 581 C, the new planet orbits a red dwarf star in what's called the "Goldilocks zone"—not so close that water melts, and not so far that it...

NASA Shutters Ideas Factory

Mar 22, 2007 8:47 AM CDT

NASA Shutters Ideas Factory

(Newser) - In a cost-cutting move, NASA is shutting down its futuristic think tank, source of way-ahead-of-the-curve ideas, many of them worthy of a Star Trek script. Closing the Institute for Advanced Concepts will save $4 million out of NASA’s $16 billion dollar budget. But former NASA scientist Keith Cowing describes...

NASA Discovers Seas On
Saturn's Moon

Mar 14, 2007 9:18 PM CDT

NASA Discovers Seas On Saturn's Moon

(Newser) - NASA's radar detected evidence of huge seas—one of them larger than any of the Great Lakes—on the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan. Although the spacecraft, Cassini, cannot confirm that the dark images are liquid until passing over the area again as scheduled in May, scientists believe they are...