Space News

ESA's Gaia mission blasted off this morning on a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on its exciting mission to study a billion suns. Gaia is destined to create the most accurate map yet of the...

The NEOWISE spacecraft has taken its first set of test images since being reactivated in September after a 2.5-year-long hibernation. NEOWISE will resume its hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids, some of which could ...

Industry officials said Astrium will be a favored value-added distributor of Global Xpress to its large customer set.

(Phys.org) --NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), a spacecraft that made the most comprehensive survey to date of asteroids and comets, has returned its first set of test images in prep...

Gaia, a European mission to map the Milky Way, has successfully launched from the European Space Agency’s base in French Guiana. [More] --

The inward migration of giant-planet cores may be slowed by the presence of "planet traps" around their star, a new study reports. These traps could explain the presence of puzzling, boiling-hot gas giants known as "hot ...

Astronauts preparing to spacewalk outside the International Space Station are outfitting their spacesuits with an unusual device: a makeshift snorkel. Primary Section: spaceflight

Bolivia will on Friday launch a telecommunications satellite in China, an unprecedented event which the government in La Paz has encouraged citizens to follow via live broadcasts.

Alien Seas is ostensibly a book about "oceans in space," but it delivers so much more. The slender volume contains essays by many active planetary scientists who also happen to be excellent writers, each one of them play...

Space rocks and a Space rock star consumed much of the viewing this year. Find out which one took the top spot for 2013.

Titan harbors about 2,000 cubic miles of liquid methane and ethane on its frigid surface. The hydrocarbons are contained in an area near Titan's north pole that's just 660,000 square miles in size, a region slightly larg...

Curiosity activities over sols 465 to 487 included monitoring the condition of the wheels; a flight software upgrade; and dumping the Cumberland drill sample. Curiosity put approximately 200 meters on the odometer during...

A new way to weigh the mass of distant alien worlds could help reveal key details about how friendly they may be to life, researchers say.

Early this morning, at 09:12 UTC, the cloudy pre-dawn sky above the coastal town of Kourou, French Guiana was brilliantly sliced by the fiery exhaust of a Soyuz VS06, which ferried ESA’s “billion-star surveyor” Gai...

European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft launched from Kourou, French Guiana on Dec. 19, 2013 aboard a Russian Soyuz-Fregat rocket. The spacecraft will deliver the most comprehensive map of the Milky Way to date.

Today: External Thermal Control System (ETCS) Loop A Status: Following yesterday's S1-1 MDM software patch, Flight Controllers continued to perform characterization tests on ETCS Loop A to regain fine temperature control...

NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Centennial, Colo., to launch the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to Mars.

NASA is extending deadlines for its Exploration Design Challenge, an educational program connected to Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) -- the first mission for NASA's new Orion spacecraft, scheduled to launch in Septemb...

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), a spacecraft that made the most comprehensive survey to date of asteroids and comets, has returned its first set of test images in preparation for a...

Arianespace Press Releases: Arianespace marked another mission accomplished for science as its medium-lift Soyuz successfully launched the European Space Agency's Gaia billion-star surveyor today from the Spaceport in Fr...

Last night I used my telescope to eye-hike the volcanic plains of the Sea of Rains (Mare Imbrium) where the Yutu rover and lander sit beneath a blistering sun. With no atmosphere to speak of and days that last two weeks,...

One of our favorite photographers, Jack Fusco, recently visited Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, one of the worlds largest dark sky preserves. He went there on behalf of Travel Alberta, during the annual Night Sk...