Space Shuttle/NASA

I visited Richard Quinn's lab at NASA Ames Research Center to learn more about his work on Earth and on Mars. Richard Quinn and John Marshall are both scientists in the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute; they are instrument scientists and team members on NASA's soon-to-land Mars Phoenix Lander.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronomers have discovered the youngest known supernova in the Milky Way galaxy, still just a baby at 140 years old. The scientists, who announced their findings Wednesday, used a radio observatory in New Mexico and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in space to identify when the supernova, or stellar, explosion occurred. They put the star-dying event at sometime around 1868.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US space probe sent to Mars to dig for signs of life is nearing the end of its nine-month voyage and should touch down on the Red Planet on schedule, NASA said Tuesday.

When space shuttle Discovery touched down in December 2006 after spending 13 days in space traveling 5.3 million miles, it came to rest on four main landing gear and two nose gear tires. Although not much larger than a truck tire, just one of Discovery's main gear tires could carry three times the load of a Boeing 747 tire or the entire starting line-up of a NASCAR race — 40 race cars — all hitting the pavement at 250 miles per hour.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Nine months ago, NASA's Phoenix probe blasted off for Mars with an unprecedented mission to sample water on another world.

WASHINGTON — With just 12 days to go until its Mars arrival, NASA's Phoenix lander is functioning well and on course to be the first mission to land in the frigid, arctic regions of the red planet, NASA officials said today.

Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

WASHINGTON - Daniel Suson has a doctorate in astrophysics and has worked on the superconducting super collider and a forthcoming NASA probe. Now he's heading back to school to take on an even trickier task — getting elected to public office.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Seven astronauts climbed inside the space shuttle Discovery on Friday as part of a dress rehearsal for a May 31 mission to deliver a Japanese laboratory to the International Space Station.

The crew of the space shuttle Discovery successfully completed a dress rehearsal today for their upcoming launch. They capped off their practice run at Cape Canaveral with a simulated countdown to liftoff at 11:00 a.m. EDT.

The devastation wrought in Myanmar by a Tropical Cyclone Nargis is revealed in new NASA satellite images.

NASA's shuttle Discovery is on track to ferry seven astronauts and a large Japanese laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS) later this month.

NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman squeezed in some laughs amid his busy day aboard the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday during an orbital call from comedian Stephen Colbert.

WASHINGTON — Ed Weiler, the 30-year NASA veteran who agreed in March to lead the agency's Science Mission Directorate temporarily, will fill that position permanently, NASA announced Wednesday.

The space shuttle Discovery rolled out to its Florida launch pad early Saturday as NASA prepares to launch a massive Japanese laboratory later this month.

Using data recovered from a damaged computer hard-drive that was aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, scientists have recently learned more about why the act of shaking a material can quickly transform it into something completely different.

HOUSTON - NASA has pushed back the planned launch of the final flight to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope by up to five weeks due to external fuel tank delays, mission managers said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The space shuttle's pending upcoming mission to continue maintenance and repair work on the Hubble telescope, which had been set for August 28, will be pushed back four to five weeks, NASA said Thursday.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Delays in producing space shuttle fuel tanks, which were substantially redesigned after the 2003 Columbia disaster, will postpone NASA's final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope by a month or longer, officials at the U.S. space agency said on Thursday.

Astronomers are now able to predict when a certain type of star will let loose a powerful eruption.

The space shuttle Discovery moved a step closer to launch early Saturday as NASA engineers hauled the spacecraft into a massive hangar to join its fuel tank and twin rocket boosters.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The irregular landing of a Russian space capsule last week is not a "major problem," a top NASA official said, despite reports that the astronauts on board could have died.

WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for launch services on the company's Falcon 1 and planned Falcon 9 launch vehicles, the space agency announced Tuesday.

NASA is watching closely as Russian engineers hunt for the source of a malfunction that sent a returning Soyuz spacecraft off-course during a Saturday landing.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space agency said on Tuesday it was confident Russia's Soyuz capsules remained safe to use, even as investigators probed an uncomfortably fast and off-course landing of one of the spaceships over the weekend.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking called Monday for a new era of space conquest akin to Christopher Columbus' discovery of the new world, in a speech on the 50th anniversary of NASA space agency.

NASA is giving Earth folk a new view of their home planet in high-definition (HD), as seen through the eyes of astronauts of past shuttle and International Space Station missions.

MIAMI (AFP) - NASA wants astronauts who will return to the moon to take one long step for mankind.