NASA

Read the latest NASA news today on Newser.com

Stories 881 - 900 | << Prev   Next >>

NASA Will Try to Free Rover Stuck on Mars

Spirit has been in a sand trap since April

(Newser) - Help is on the way, rover. NASA will attempt to free the Mars rover Spirit from its sand-trap prison on Monday. The plucky machine got stuck in April—“the equivalent of falling through the ice over a frozen pond," says a NASA official. Spirit has been exploring Mars...

NASA Mission Monitors Polar Ice

Antarctica jet filling in for dying satellite

(Newser) - NASA has begun a mission much closer to home than usual. The agency is flying a DC-8 over Antarctica to track melting glaciers and any subsequent rise in sea levels. Operation Ice Bridge is designed to buttress the work of a fading satellite, ICESat, which is just about spent after...

Farthest-Ever Star Blast From Ancient Cosmos

Gamma ray burst took 13 billion years to reach Earth

(Newser) - Astronomers have detected a cosmic object more distant than any ever seen: a gamma ray burst about 13 billion light-years from Earth. The massive, luminous burst occurred about 600 million years after the Big Bang—that is, when the universe was 4% of its current age—and only lasted for...

Ares Test Rocket Blasts Off

Possible space shuttle replacement launches after long delay

(Newser) - NASA’s Ares I-X test rocket finally blasted off this morning, after several delays and a storm-foiled first attempt. The $445 million rocket is the first of its kind, and NASA hopes it’ll eventually replace the space shuttle and take astronauts to the moon. Originally it was supposed to...

NASA Scrubs Rocket's Test Flight

It may try tomorrow if weather permits

(Newser) - NASA's newest rocket will remain on the launch pad today because of clouds and high winds. Officials are deciding whether to try again tomorrow morning. Launch controllers tried repeatedly to get the Ares I-X rocket flying and got to within two-and-a-half minutes before calling it off. Minor problems stalled the...

NASA Readies New Rocket for Test Flight

It's the first new US rocket in 30 years

(Newser) - NASA rolled out a seaside launch pad in Florida today, preparing to test its first new rocket designed for manned space travel in almost 30 years. The Ares I-X is a prototype of the Ares I, which NASA hopes will power the new spacecraft that will replace the shuttle. It...

Top US Scientist Busted for Spying

Space researcher accused of trying to sell secrets to Israel

(Newser) - A leading American space scientist has been charged with attempted espionage after being busted in an FBI sting operation. Stewart Nozette, who worked on classified aerospace projects for agencies including NASA and the Department of Defense, was arrested when he attempted to pass secrets to an FBI agent posing as...

NASA Crashes Probes Into Moon

Intentional crashes are part of hunt for water

(Newser) - NASA has successfully bulldozed two spacecraft into the moon's south pole in a search for hidden ice, but without the promised live photos. First, a 2.2-ton empty rocket hull smacked the moon's south pole at 7:31am. Four minutes later, the camera-laden space probe made its plunge to examine...

NASA to Smash Rocket Into Moon Tomorrow

New crater will be blasted into surface as NASA hunts for buried ice

(Newser) - If there's ice under the moon's surface, NASA aims to find it tomorrow. A rocket will smash into a crater near the moon's south pole, kicking up hundreds of thousands of pounds of lunar dirt. The dirt will be analyzed for traces of ice or water by a satellite following...

Mammoth Ring Found Around Saturn

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered a colossal ring around Saturn, the biggest planetary ring yet found. It's enormous even by solar system standards: Among the analogies being used to make it clear to our little earthly minds is that it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it. "This thing is...

New Hubble Images Dazzle
 New Hubble Images Dazzle 
Slideshow
Sep 9, 2009 1:46 PM CDT

New Hubble Images Dazzle

Refurbished telescope can see further, with more color

(Newser) - NASA released the first shots from the recently upgraded Hubble Space Telescope today, and the results are spectacular. Thanks to the new imagers installed in May, Hubble can now see farther, with greater clarity and a wider color spectrum, reports NPR. Officially, NASA calls it a new beginning for the...

Oops: Onion Dupes Bangladeshi Papers on Fake Moon Landing

(Newser) - Satire just doesn't translate well. Two Bangladeshi newspapers have apologized to readers after breathlessly reporting a US scoop: Neil Armstrong thinks the moon landing was a hoax! Problem is, the story appeared in the Onion. "We've since learned that the fun site runs false and juicy reports based on...

Approaching Debris Doesn't Stop Spacewalk

Space junk may come within 2 miles of station, shuttle

(Newser) - Two astronauts stepped out on a spacewalk to install a new tank of space-station coolant today as a large piece of orbiting junk headed their way. The old rocket part was expected to pass early tomorrow within 2 miles of the shuttle-station complex, considered a safe distance by NASA specialists....

NASA Briefly Lost Touch With Spacewalking Astronauts

(Newser) - Astronauts walking outside the International Space Station lost communications with NASA ground control for 33 minutes today, Reuters reports, after a storm cut the link through a relay station on the Pacific island of Guam. “This is no safety of flight issue,” said a spokesman, who added that...

Send Astronauts to Mars —and Leave Them There

Why a one-way ticket is the best way to the red planet

(Newser) - The most feasible way to get humans on Mars is to offer retirement-age astronauts one-way tickets to live out their last days on the red planet. Say what? It's not as crazy as it sounds, writes scientist Lawrence Krauss in the New York Times, who believes his plan would solve...

Space Station Gets Colbert Treadmill

(Newser) - Astronauts hitched a giant chest of drawers to the International Space Station today containing a new freezer, sleeping compartment, and treadmill named for TV personality Stephen Colbert. The Italian-built chest—nicknamed Leonardo, as in da Vinci—was moved from space shuttle Discovery via a hefty robot arm and hoisted onto...

Discovery, on 3rd Try, Blasts Off
 Discovery, on 3rd Try, Blasts Off 
Aug 28, 2009 11:11 PM CDT

Discovery, on 3rd Try, Blasts Off

Shuttle carries treadmill named for Stephen Colbert

(Newser) - Space shuttle Discovery and seven astronauts blasted off seconds before midnight (EDT) from Florida, lighting up the sky for miles around. It was NASA's third launch attempt. Tuesday's try was called off by thunderstorms and Wednesday's by fuel valve trouble. Discovery is hauling a full load of space station...

Dutch Museum's 'Moon Rock' an Out-of-This-World Fake

Gift from NASA is just petrified wood, tests reveal

(Newser) - A “moon rock” exhibited at the Dutch national museum is actually petrified wood, the BBC reports. The three Apollo 11 astronauts gave the object to former PM Willem Drees on a tour following their 1969 moon mission; NASA shared similar artifacts with more than 100 other countries. The purported...

Discovery Delayed 2nd Time
 Discovery Delayed 2nd Time 
Aug 25, 2009 6:22 PM CDT

Discovery Delayed 2nd Time

(Newser) - NASA called off another launch attempt for the shuttle Discovery, scheduled for early tomorrow, due to a broken valve in the craft’s liquid propellant system, Space.com reports tonight. It’s the second time the mission has been postponed in less than 24 hours: Storms early this morning forced...

Key Component of Earth Life Found in Comet

(Newser) - An amino acid necessary to the construction of proteins, and therefore life on Earth, has been found in a comet that passes through our solar system, Space.com reports. Glycine was found in samples picked up by a NASA spacecraft in 2004. The discovery suggests that life’s building blocks...

Stories 881 - 900 | << Prev   Next >>