Space + Space Brief + Space Features

Space station could operate until 2028

Posted March 12, 2010 - 05:36 by Emma Woollacott

The International Space Station could remain in use until 2028, officials have said.

Chinese moms picked for space mission

Posted March 11, 2010 - 07:58 by Emma Woollacott

China has opted for married mothers over single women in its selection of its first female astronauts.

Binary star has a five-minute orbit

Posted March 9, 2010 - 04:56 by Emma Woollacott

An international team of astronomers has discovered a weird pair of stars which orbit around each other in just five and a half minutes.

Organic molecules discovered in Orion Nebula

Posted March 5, 2010 - 09:18 by Staff writer

ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory has discovered organic molecules in the Orion Nebula - potential signs of life.

China to start space station construction next year

Posted March 4, 2010 - 06:42 by Staff writer

China plans to launch the first module of its planned space station next year.

Lockheed Martin designs world's largest heat shield

Posted March 3, 2010 - 15:36 by Aharon Etengoff

Engineers at Lockheed Martin have successfully completed fabrication of the world's largest heat shield.

Astronomers use galaxies as lenses

Posted March 3, 2010 - 08:16 by Sraff writer

Peering through entire galaxies as their lenses, a team of researchers has found a new way to establish the size and age of the universe.

Aftershock: Chilean quake shortened Earth days

Posted March 2, 2010 - 18:47 by Aharon Etengoff

A JPL research scientist has hypothesized that the recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile shortened the length of each Earth day by approximately 1.26 microseconds, or one millionth of a second.

NASA radar finds ice at moon's north pole

Posted March 2, 2010 - 04:41 by Emma Woollacott

Instruments aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft have detected millions of tons of water ice near the moon's north pole.

Raytheon designs advanced GPS controls

Posted February 26, 2010 - 14:04 by Aharon Etengoff

The US Air Force has selected Raytheon to design an advanced control segment that is expected to significantly improve the accuracy of information originating from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.

Planet torn apart by its own tides

Posted February 25, 2010 - 06:23 by Emma Woollacott

Astrophysicists have for the first time got the opportunity to watch a planet being distorted and destroyed by its host star.

Cassini flyby reveals multiple ice geysers on Saturn moon

Posted February 24, 2010 - 18:19 by Aharon Etengoff

NASA has released a series of images that reveal a "forest" of geysers spraying ice from prominent fissures along the south polar region of Enceladus.

No gaming or iPods allowed in space

Posted February 23, 2010 - 19:10

In space, no one can hear you scream or listen to your iPod.

Milky Way is full of alien invaders

Posted February 23, 2010 - 09:23 by Jean Antonique

Around a quarter of the star clusters in our galaxy sneaked their way in from other galaxies, according to scientists from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.

ESA mulls three future missions

Posted February 22, 2010 - 04:59 by Staff writer

The European Space Agency (ESA) has picked out dark energy, habitable planets and a detailed solar survey as candidates for two missions to be launched sometime after 2017.

Hubble reveals creation of massive galaxy

Posted February 19, 2010 - 06:46 by Emma Woollacott

There's slow developers everywhere, and the Hubble space telescope has discovered the astronomical equivalent: a group of small, ancient galaxies that have waited 10 billion years to get round to building a large elliptical galaxy.