Space & Astronomy News

Two months ago, NASA put out the call to its past and present employees: design a patch to symbolize the end of the space shuttle program coming to a close in 2010, and the chosen artwork will fly to orbit on one of the final flights. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (AFP) - NASA has teamed up with the Dubai-based Arab Youth Venture Foundation to provide students from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the chance to work on NASA missions, the US space agency said Monday. Full Story »

Unusual fluctuations in the brightness of older sun-like stars have long mystified astronomers, and new, detailed observations of the phenomenon have only deepened the mystery. Full Story »

LOS ANGELES - After five years of secret construction, the cloak is coming off a privately funded spacecraft designed to fly well-heeled tourists into space. Full Story »

LOS ANGELES - NASA's latest space telescope will scan the sky in search of never-before-seen asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies, with one of its main tasks to catalog objects posing a danger to Earth. The sky-mapping WISE, or Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, is scheduled to launch no earlier than before dawn Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast aboard a Delta 2 rocket. Full Story »

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A rocket carrying an Air Force satellite that will be used by the military has launched from Cape Canaveral. Full Story »

Skywatchers in Florida have two chances to spot the International Space Station fly high overhead in the next week. Full Story »

Astronomers say they have taken the first direct image of a planet-like object orbiting a star much like our own sun. Full Story »

NASA is still perplexed over the parachute failure that damaged its new Ares I-X test rocket during its October test launch, but otherwise the debut flight went well, mission managers said. Full Story »

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA still isn't sure why two parachutes failed during a test flight of its prototype moon rocket just over a month ago. Full Story »

Lawmakers on Wednesday said NASA must continue to improve astronaut crew safety on its new shuttle-replacing rocket, as well as on promising commercial vehicles that could ferry crews to orbit. Full Story »

MOSCOW (AFP) - US astronaut Timothy Creamer said on Thursday he was impatient to taste "space sushi" courtesy of his Japanese crewmate after they arrive on the International Space Station (ISS) later this month. Full Story »

A returning spacecraft may someday hurtle through Earth's atmosphere bearing evidence of life from Mars. But scientists won't casually crack open the precious payload in any old laboratory. They will need a specially-designed building that not only protects the Martian samples from terrestrial contamination, but also prevents any Martian material or organisms from escaping into Earth's biosphere. Full Story »

LONDON (AFP) - A leading scientist who helped alert the world to the dangers of global warming said on Thursday that climate talks in Copenhagen next week were based on such flawed proposals that he hoped they failed. Full Story »

DAMASCUS, Syria - A blast at a gas station in a Damascus suburb killed three people Thursday, gutting the back of an empty bus and blowing out nearby windows, officials said. Full Story »

All supernova explosions are violent affairs, but this one takes the cake. Astronomers have spotted a new type of extremely bright cosmic explosion they think originates from an exceptionally massive star. Full Story »

Space solar power advocates may soon get their day in the sun, as different projects aimed at beaming energy to Earth from orbit begin to take shape. But at least one space power scientist worries that a U.S.-based project may be promising too much, too soon. Full Story »

A tiny piece of a defunct Russian satellite zipped by the International Space Station Tuesday, but was far enough away that outpost's two-man crew did not have to strap into their lifeboat to wait out the close shave, NASA officials said. Full Story »