NASA's asteroid sample return mission moves forward

NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016.

NASA wants high-performance spaceflight computing capabilities

NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., are requesting research and development proposals to define the type of spacecraft computing needed for future missions.

NASA's Google+ Hangout links Space Station, "Star Trek Into Darkness" crews

The director, a writer and some actors in the film "Star Trek Into Darkness" will join NASA as it hosts a Google+ Hangout from noon to 12:45 p.m. EDT, May 16, about how work aboard the International Space Station is turning science fiction into reality.

Video: Analyzing the atmospheres of far-off worlds

Gone are the days of being able to count the number of known planets on your fingers. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed exoplanets - planets that orbit stars beyond our sun - and more than 2,700 other candidates.

These dead stars are polluted with planet debris

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found the building blocks for Earth-sized planets in an unlikely place - the atmospheres of a pair of burned-out stars called white dwarfs.

NASA begins again

The roar of a 5,000 pound rocket engine has returned to the Johnson Space Center. The Morpheus team has completed the build-up of our “Bravo” vehicle, conducted numerous integrated tests, and has now stepped into our flight test program.

NASA tests Orion crew module

Completely surrounded by a massive 20-foot-high structure called the crew module static load test fixture, the Orion crew module is being put through a series of tests that simulate the massive loads the spacecraft would experience during its mission.

Putting planets in a petri dish with NASA's Spitzer

Our Milky Way galaxy is teeming with a wild variety of planets. In addition to our solar system's eight near-and-dear planets, there are more than 800 so-called exoplanets known to circle stars beyond our sun.

NASA: Global warming increases the risk of extreme weather

A NASA-led modeling study provides new evidence that global warming may increase the risk for extreme rainfall and drought.

NASA laptop stuffed full of porn

A Chinese man who was suspected of spying on NASA was pulled off a plane with a stolen laptop.  But instead of the expected state secrets, the laptop was packed full of porn.

NASA's Osiris sets sail to comet Bennu in 2016

NASA's Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will visit the asteroid now called Bennu, named after an important ancient Egyptian avian deity.

NASA's LADEE can help us understand other worlds

Earth’s atmosphere is critically important to all of us. In addition to providing us with air to breathe, it protects us from temperature extremes, harmful space radiation, and vast numbers of incoming meteoroids.

NASA's Cassini observes a Saturnian hurricane

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has offered scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's north pole.

Meteors are colliding with Saturn's rings

NASA's Cassini spacecraft recently managed to provide the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn's rings.

This galaxy turns gas into stars

Astronomers have discovered a galaxy transforming gas into stars with almost 100 percent efficiency - a rare phase of galaxy evolution that is the most extreme yet observed.

More smartphones head into space

NASA has put three more smartphones into orbit on board of an Antares rocket. The tiny satellites were built in a standard cubesat frame and they were built using off-the-shelf components. They may very well be the cheapest satellites ever launched, Gizmag reckons.

Hubble offers a closer look at Comet ISON

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has offered astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, a newly-discovered sun grazer comet that may light up the sky later this year, or come so close to the Sun that it disintegrates.

NASA's Hubble space telescope snaps a horsehead of a different color

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.

NASA's Kepler discovers three super-Earth-size planets in "habitable zone"

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.

NASA targets wayward asteroids

Like many of his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days.