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It's 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby. Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT. Scientists are not sure where this unusually large space rock, which was discovered 15 years ago, originated. But the mysterious sooty substance on its surface could indicate it may be a result of a comet that flew too close to the...

<p>PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Surrounded by engineers, NASA chief Charles Bolden inspected a prototype spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid and tow it closer to Earth for astronauts to explore.</p> <p>Bolden checked on the progress Thursday a month after the Obama administration unveiled its 2014 budget that proposes $105 million to jumpstart the mission, which may eventually cost more than $2.6 billion.</p>

On the evening of 23 March, 1983, Ronald Reagan delivered a televised address about defence and national security. "Let me share with you a vision of the future," the president began in what was a last-minute addition to the half-hour speech. In Reagan's vision, we would "embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive." It was the first mention of Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), the plan to change America's nuclear posture from offensive to defensive. His goal was to render the Soviet nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete." Reagan's admirers praised SDI...

A private space exploration company's plans to build a novel moonship to return human explorers to the lunar surface has moved one step closer to reality. Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman has completed a lunar lander feasiblity study for the Golden Spike Company, which aims to begin ferrying paying customers to the moon and back by 2020. Click to enlarge:

Estonia's first satellite, ESTCube-1, was rocketed off to orbit the Earth on Tuesday at 05:06, after strong winds had caused setbacks, postponing the initial planned launch date on Saturday. Estonia has thus become the 41st nation to have a manmade object in space, beating out Finland and the other Baltic countries, all of which are due to launch their first satellites in the coming years. The nanosatellite reached orbit at around 07:06 Estonian time. Launched from the Guiana Space Center, ESTCube-1 was carried by the launch vehicle Vega and was accompanied by two other satellites, Europe's Proba V and Vietnam's...

Do you dream of living on Mars? Then turn on your webcam. You've got an application video to make. Mars One, a Netherlands-based group that wants to turn the colonizing of Mars into a reality television phenomenon, has started accepting applications for its astronaut selection program. In just two weeks, more than 78,000 people from more than 120 countries have applied. You don't need previous experience in rocket science, astronomy or really anything to apply for the Mars One astronaut selection program - but you will need to be at least 18 years old and have nerves of steel. Mars...

During his evening ritual of sharing images taken from the International Space Station, Commander Chris Hadfield posted this gem: a gorgeous night-time view of the southeastern United States, with the Moon hovering over Earth’s limb and the terminator separating night from day. Dawn is just beginning to break to the east, as the ISS flies overhead. This image reflects the ‘wistful’ feelings Hadfield is having as his time in space in coming to a close. He and his two crewmates Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko will head back to Earth on May 13. During a recent linkup with students, Hadfield...

British billionaire Richard Branson’s commercial space venture Virgin Galactic got one step closer to carrying tourists into space when a test pilot cracked the sound barrier over the Mojave desert. For the first time, the company's SpaceShipTwo, engaged its rocket motor and sped to Mach 1.2 and reached 56,000 feet in altitude. The flight is the latest -- and largest -- milestone in Virgin Galactic's testing of technology it hopes to use to carry scores of paying customers into space multiple times a day. “The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt our single most important...

Bracing for “significant impacts” to funding for public outreach programs next year, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory decided to cancel its hugely popular open house in June. The cost savings? Roughly $400,000 for the two-day event. The figure is a comparatively slim sum for an agency that deals with budgets into the billions, but comes as NASA faces pressure to cut costs where it can amid the across-the-board federal spending reductions known as sequestration. It was that downward pressure that JPL cited when it announced last week that the open house scheduled for June 8 and 9 would be canceled to...

'Collapsar jump' from Forever War seemingly not on cards Disappointing news on the science wires today, as new research indicates that a possible means of subverting the laws of physics to allow interstellar travel apparently doesn't work. As we are told in a new paper just published in hefty boffinry mag Science: Neutron stars with masses above 1.8 solar masses possess extreme gravitational fields, which may give rise to phenomena outside general relativity. That would be quite handy, as one of the rules of general relativity is that nothing can travel faster than light: which means that journeys between the...

The team in charge of successfully landing NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's highest group honor at a dinner in Washington on Wednesday night, April 24. The 2013 Trophy for Current Achievement honors outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and technology. The Mars Science Laboratory Project built and operates the rover Curiosity, which has been investigating past and current environments in Gale Crater on the Red Planet since its dramatic sky-crane landing in August 2012. The rover has 10 science instruments to investigate whether...

Unless space debris is actively tackled, some satellite orbits will become extremely hazardous over the next 200 years, a new study suggests. The research found that catastrophic collisions would likely occur every five to nine years at the altitudes used principally to observe the Earth. And the scientists who did the work say their results are optimistic - the real outcome would probably be far worse. To date, there have been just a handful of major collisions in the space age. The study was conducted for the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. This is the global forum through which world...

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A U.S. spaceflight company is hoping the third time's the charm in order to launch a brand-new rocket into space on its maiden flight today (April 21). After two delayed launched attempts, the privately built Antares rocket is once again poised to blast off from a seaside pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Liftoff is set for 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT). You can watch the Antares rocket launch live on SPACE.com beginning 4:30 p.m. ET (2030 GMT), courtesy of NASA's webcast.

On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight. On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to conduct the first test launch of its Antares rocket under a NASA program in which private companies deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned rocket's practice payload will be vaulted into orbit from Wallops Island before burning up in the atmosphere on its return to Earth several months later.... A successful launch would pave the way for Dulles-based Orbital to...

The massive Thirty Meter Telescope will be able to image objects 13 billion light years away, near the beginning of time. Set atop Mauna Kea, the Thirty Meter Telescope will be able to observe planets outside our solar system. (Credit: Courtesy TMT Observatory Corporation) If you love eye-popping images of space, here's welcome news: the Hawaiian Board of Land and Natural Resources has backed building what's to be the world's largest, most powerful optical telescope above the clouds atop the volcano Mauna Kea. The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will have a primary mirror of 492 segments measuring some 100 feet...

Tomorrow the world marks 52 years since Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into space and 32 years since the first launch of the Space Shuttle. Scientists, artists, educators, and fans of space will be celebrating these milestones at over 320 parties and events in 50 countries on all 7 continents. Dubbed 'the World Space Party,' Yuri's Night is in its 13th year. "The level of interest and enthusiasm this year has been just amazing," said Dr. Ryan Kobrick, Executive Director of Yuri's Night. "We've already hit 300 events, and we expect to register many more by Friday. This is officially our...

Welcome to the Carnival of Space 296. This week there is coverage of astronomy of Galaxies, trips to Mars, space technology and more. 1. Andrew Fraknoi highlights a remarkable image by Robert Gendler, a physician and amateur astronomer, assembled from Hubble and other data, that shows a galaxy like our own, but 50 million lightyears away. 2. In the wake of Dennis Tito's Inspiration Mars announcement, Cheap Astronomy delivers a podcast on some of the practicalities of really doing a manned Mars mission. 3. NExtbigfuture covered the work of John Slough and his team who have calculating the potential for...

Might also answer poser: 'If supernovae were popcorn...' NASA's Hubble telescope has spotted the most distant massive star explosion of its kind ever, one which could help boffins understand the very fabric of the universe. Hubble view of supernova SN Wilson The telescope picked out Supernova UDS10Wil, also known as SN Wilson, in the night sky. The star apparently blew up over 10 billion years ago, and the resulting light from the explosion took that long to reach Earth. Wilson is in the special class of Type Ia supernovae, which give astroboffins a consistent level of brightness that can be...

Potential Dark Matter Discovery a Win for Space Station Science April 04, 2013; 7:56 AM If nature is kind, the first detection of dark matter might be credited to the International Space Station soon. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment hangs on the side of the International Space Station, July 12, 2011. CREDIT: NASAToday (April 3), researchers announced the first science results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a $2 billion cosmic-ray particle detector mounted on the exterior of the football-field-size International Space Station. The instrument has observed a striking pattern of antimatter particles called positrons that may turn out to...

Crowdfunding for NASA – in a round about way. Unknown to most people, NASA is barred from purchasing advertising. Recently a campaign on Indiegogo was launched to purchase a trailer to run prior to the next Star Trek film which will soon be in theaters across the country. As quoted from the campaign; "When the Space Shuttle landed for the last time, many Americans thought NASA was closed for good. Nothing could be further from the truth. Right now, men and women from the space program are designing and building next generation space vehicles to go to new destinations in...

WASHINGTON – Thirty-five years after its launch, Voyager 1 appears to have travelled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere, according to a new study appearing online today. The heliosphere is a region of space dominated by the Sun and its wind of energetic particles, and which is thought to be enclosed, bubble-like, in the surrounding interstellar medium of gas and dust that pervades the Milky Way galaxy. On August 25, 2012, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft measured drastic changes in radiation levels, more than 11 billion miles from the Sun. Anomalous cosmic rays, which are cosmic rays...

Self-Healing Circuits for Deep Space by Paul Gilster on March 18, 2013 Computer failures can happen any time, but it’s been so long since I’ve had a hard disk failure that I rarely worry about such problems. Part of my relaxed stance has to do with backups, which I always keep in triplicate, so when I discovered Friday afternoon that one of my hard disks had failed — quickly and catastrophically — it was more of a nuisance than anything else. It meant taking out the old disk, going out to buy a new one and installing same, and then...

On March 15, 2013, at 2:54 a.m. EDT, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later and affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground. Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and ESA/NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 900 miles per second, which is a fairly fast speed for CMEs. Historically, CMEs at this speed have...

Today is inauguration day for ALMA, the massive telescopic array that’s still under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert. But just because it’s not finished doesn’t mean astronomers haven’t been using it. The $1.5 billion telescope has just peered into the deepest realms of the universe, revealing some of the most distant star-spawning galaxies ever discovered....

A fireball that appeared over the Sri Lankan province of Polonnaruwa on December 29, 2012 was a meteorite containing algae fossils, according to a paper published in the Journal of Cosmology. A team of researchers, led by Jamie Wallis of Cardiff University, believes that these fossils provide evidence of cometary panspermia, the hypothesis that life originated in outer space and comets brought it to Earth. Scientists at the Sri Lankan Medical Research Institute in Colombo forwarded 628 stone fragments that allegedly fell from the fireball to Cardiff University, where Wallis' team indentified three as originating from a carbonaceous chondrite. The...

'Something unexpected' is happening on the Sun, Nasa has warned. This year was supposed to be the year of 'solar maximum,' the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. But as this image reveals, solar activity is relatively low.

The oldest known star appears to be older than the universe itself, but a new study is helping to clear up this seeming paradox. Previous research had estimated that the Milky Way galaxy's so-called "Methuselah star" is up to 16 billion years old. That's a problem, since most researchers agree that the Big Bang that created the universe occurred about 13.8 billion years ago. The uncertainty Bond refers to is plus or minus 800 million years, which means the star could actually be 13.7 billion years old — younger than the universe as it's currently understood, though just barely. Now...

A newly found asteroid will pass just inside the orbit of the Moon, with its closest approach on March 4, 2013 at 07:35 UTC. Named 2013 EC, the asteroid is about the size of the space rock that exploded over Russia two and a half weeks ago, somewhere between 10-17 meters wide (the Russian meteorite is estimated to be about 15 meters wide when it entered Earth's atmosphere). 2013 EC was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona on March 2. There is no chance this asteroid will hit Earth. 2013 EC will come within 396,000 kilometers from Earth,...

In case you just can’t get enough impact news, it looks like Mars may actually get hit by a comet in 2014! As it stands right now, the chance of a direct impact are small, but it’s likely Mars will get pelted by the debris associated with the comet. The comet is called C/2013 A1, discovered on Jan. 3, 2013 by the Australian veteran comet hunter Robert McNaught. Extrapolating its orbit, they found it will make a very near pass of Mars around Oct. 19, 2014, missing the planet by the nominal distance of about 100,000 kilometers. Observations taken at...

Astronauts onboard a privately-funded expedition to Mars in 2018 will use their own faeces to protect themselves against cosmic radiation. The couple during the Inspiration Mars mission, funded by multimillionaire Dennis Tito, and set to fly-by the Red Planet in 2018 will face cramped conditions, muscle atrophy and potential boredom. However, their greatest health risk comes from exposure to the radiation from cosmic rays, 'New Scientist' reported. The project will develop a radiation shield for the spacecraft by lining its walls with human waste, among other materials. "It's a little queasy sounding, but there's no place for that material to...

PASADENA, Calif. - The ground team for NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has switched the rover to a redundant onboard computer in response to a memory issue on the computer that had been active. The intentional swap at about 2:30 a.m. PST today (Thursday, Feb. 28) put the rover, as anticipated, into a minimal-activity precautionary status called "safe mode." The team is shifting the rover from safe mode to operational status over the next few days and is troubleshooting the condition that affected operations yesterday. The condition is related to a glitch in flash memory linked to the other, now-inactive, computer.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. on Friday launched its third unmanned commercial mission to the international space station, though for some eight nerve-fraying hours company officials scrambled to resolve a serious propulsion malfunction that threatened to cripple their capsule. After some fast detective work and a flurry of diagnostic messages between the spacecraft and engineers on the ground, by mid-afternoon a plainly relieved Elon Musk was telling the world that all of the thrusters aboard his company's unmanned cargo capsule were working again. Following the excitement, the chief of SpaceX, as the closely held Southern California company is called, along with...

nnis Tito, a billionaire financier who in 2001 became the first space tourist, has launched a project to send two civilians on “an historic journey” to the Red Planet in January 2018. “We have not sent humans beyond the moon in more than 40 years,” Mr Tito said at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday. “I’ve been waiting, and a lot of people my age, have been waiting. And I think it’s time to put an end to that lapse”. The mission, a “return fly-by”, in which the spacecraft would fly around Mars rather than land, would last for...

ince the radio-frequency emission from planets is expected to be strongly influenced by their interaction with the magnetic �eld and corona of the host star, the physics of this process can be effectively constrained by making sensitive measurements of the planetary radio emission. Up to now, however, numerous searches for radio emission from extrasolar planets at radio wavelengths have only yielded negative results. Here we report deep radio observations of the nearby Neptune-mass extrasolar transiting planet HAT-P-11b at 150 MHz, using the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT). On July 16, 2009, we detected a 3σ emission whose light curve is...

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on how to “better identify and address asteroids that pose a potential threat to Earth,” Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said in a statement on Friday. The announcement comes after a meteorite exploded in a massive blast above Siberia that damaged buildings, houses and cars and injured about 1,000 people on Friday. "The light was so intense that it completely illuminated the courtyard of our apartment block," said Sergei Zakharov, head of the Russian Geographical Society in Chelyabinsk, according to The Wall Street Journal. "The sound, the shock wave came...

MOSCOW — A Russian emergencies official says at least one meteorite has fallen in Chelyabinsk region.

Though Vice-President Joe Biden has been hinting that President Obama is willing to hold direct one-on-one talks with Iran to try to resolve differences between the two countries, Iran is having none of it. “The Americans talk as if their agreement to bilateral talks is a great gift to us,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared. “Do they think we cannot tell the difference between a donkey and an ass?” The problem as Khamenei sees it is that “the President of the United States is a lying liar who lies. We are not such fools as to perceive such talks as anything...

DUBAI - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday he was ready to be the first human sent into orbit by Iran's fledgling space program, Iranian media reported. Iran declared last week that it had successfully launched a monkey into space and retrieved it alive, which officials hailed as a major step towards their goal of sending humans into space.snip

After Iran released news that it had successfully launched and recovered a monkey from space, some have begun to question whether the launch went as well as reported — and whether the monkey actually made it out. Earlier today, France24 andThe Independent both noticed that while the monkey seen in press shots had a prominent mole over one eye, there was no sign of it when the animal appeared later at a press conference. Iran also hasn't released shots of the craft itself after landing, a sharp contrast with the photos released from before the event. The above image from...

Ten years ago Friday, the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed and its seven astronauts killed during the final minutes of its flight. NASA will mark the 10th anniversary of the accident at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, and take part in an observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where three of the astronauts are buried. Other commemorations Friday include events at a 2-year-old Columbia museum in Hemphill, Texas, where shuttle debris fell. PBS is also airing a new documentary about Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut on Columbia. The wife of the shuttle's commander, Evelyn Husband Thompson, said she has seen...

South Korea for the first time has successfully sent a satellite into space from its own soil, joining an exclusive club that only 12 other nations in history have entered. South Korea failed previously to achieve a flawless launch, allowing impoverished North Korea to beat its rival into space. During South Korean launches in 2009 and 2010, the protective barrier around the payload failed to separate properly from the rocket. This time all appeared to go according to plan after the KSLV-1, with a Russian first stage, lifted off from the Naro Space Center, 480 kilometers south of Seoul. Its...

In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The tour includes scenes of each of the station's modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.

Iranian space officials announced Monday (Jan. 28) that they have successfully launched a live monkey into space, inching closer to the Islamic republic's goal of a manned mission, according to news reports.The space capsule, called Pishgam, which means "pioneer" in Farsi, reportedly returned the monkey alive after a suborbital flight to space and back, according to Iranian news agencies.

Hoping to take the commercialization of space to a higher level, a second company has jumped into what the founders hope will be a lucrative emerging market, prospecting for raw materials among near-Earth asteroids using fleets of low-cost robotic spacecraft, senior executives said Tuesday. The long-range goal is to develop an in situ manufacturing capability, harvesting raw materials and building components in space using high-tech mini foundries built around sophisticated 3D printers. "This is about the future. This is about making something happen," company chairman Rick Tumlinson told reporters during a news conference in Santa Monica, Calif. "Deep Space Industries...

WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded a $17.8 million contract to Bigelow Aerospace to provide a new addition to the International Space Station. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module will demonstrate the benefits of this space habitat technology for future exploration and commercial space endeavors. "The International Space Station is a unique laboratory that enables important discoveries that benefit humanity and vastly increase understanding of how humans can live and work in space for long periods," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said. "This partnership agreement for the use of expandable habitats represents a step forward in cutting-edge technology that can allow humans...

Later this year, Comet ISON could put on an unforgettable display as it plunges toward the sun for a fiery encounter likely to turn the "dirty snowball" into a naked-eye object in broad daylight. At the moment, however, it doesn't look like much. John Chumack sends this picture, taken Jan. 8th, from his private observatory in Yellow Springs, Ohio:

Dream of going to space but don’t feel like putting in the work to become a NASA astronaut? Here’s your chance to possibly make that fantasy come true. Mars One, a Netherlands-based nonprofit, is seeking volunteers to help colonize the Red Planet, according to Mashable. To meet an aggressive goal of putting people on Mars by 2023, Mars One released its basic astronaut requirements on January 8. Rather than recruiting scientists or pilots, the organization says it will consider anyone, so long as they are at least 18 years old. Intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the...

The object that North Korea sent into space early Thursday appears to be “tumbling out of control” as it orbits the earth, U.S. officials told NBC News. The officials said that it is indeed some kind of space vehicle but they still haven’t been able to determine exactly what the satellite is supposed to do. In a statement, the White House said the rocket launch was a highly provocative act that threatens regional security and violates U.N. resolutions. The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned the launch, calling it a "clear violation" of U.N. resolutions. A spokesman for U.N....

The lunar landing site was the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area. This site was picked for Apollo 17 as a location where rocks both older and younger than those previously returned from other Apollo missions and from the Luna 16 and 20 missions might be found. The mission was the final in a series of three J-type missions planned for the Apollo program. These J-type missions can be distinguished from previous G and H-series missions by extended hardware capability, larger scientific payload capacity and by the use of the battery powered Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).