ESA’s mission to Mars in 2016 has entered the final stage of construction with the signature of a contract this week with Thales Alenia Space at the Paris Air & Space Show.

Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle-4 (ATV-4) automatically docked Saturday at 10:07 a.m. EDT to the aft-end port of the International Space Station (ISS) Zvezda service module.

It is a mystery that has stymied astrophysicists for decades: how do black holes produce so many high-power X-rays?

Researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found that temperatures in the Martian atmosphere regularly rise and fall not just once each day, but twice.

NASA research indicates hunks of frozen carbon dioxide - dry ice - may glide down some Martian sand dunes on cushions of gas similar to miniature hovercraft, plowing furrows as they go.

A Swiss team from the Geneva Observatory has achieved extraordinary precision using a comparatively small 1.2-metre telescope for an observing program stretching over many years. They have discovered a new class of variable stars by measuring minute variations in stellar brightness.

Every summer, something strange and wonderful happens high above the north pole. Ice crystals begin to cling to the smoky remains of meteors, forming electric-blue clouds with tendrils that ripple hypnotically against the sunset sky.

Approaching its 10th anniversary of leaving Earth, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is on the move again, trekking to a new study area still many weeks away.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission is approaching its biggest turning point since landing its rover, Curiosity, inside Mars' Gale Crater last summer.

A flash of light from a stellar outburst has provided a rare look at the 3-D structure of material ejected by an erupting nova.

Pebbles and sand scattered near an ancient Martian river network may present the most convincing evidence yet that the frigid deserts of the Red Planet were once a habitable environment traversed by flowing water.

A scientific team led by University of Louisville doctoral student Karen Collins has discovered a hot Saturn-like planet (KELT-6b) in another solar system 700 light-years away.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.

Although nearly a thousand exoplanets have been detected indirectly — most using the radial velocity or transit methods — and many more candidates await confirmation, only a dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged.

Water-rock reaction may provide enough hydrogen 'food' to sustain life in the ocean's crust or on Mars.

A new series of images from Gemini Observatory shows Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) racing toward an uncomfortably close rendezvous with the Sun. In late November the comet could present a stunning sight in the twilight sky and remain easily visible, or even brilliant, into early December of this year.

Despite satellite images that illustrate vast networks of channels, past Mars rover missions have shown limited evidence for flowing water on Mars.

Researchers from Northeastern University are among the many scientists helping NASA use the weightlessness of space to design stronger materials here on Earth.

Researchers at the University of Southampton have taken a significant step in a project to unravel the secrets of the structure of our Universe.