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/ 10 November 2010
One of the first space walking astronauts to repair the Hubble State Telescope described his experience in space as "always kind of fun".
Nasa’s Phoenix Mars Lander has scooped up a little dirt, scientists said on Sunday, a first step towards sampling the Martian soil for ice — and the potential for life. The lander then took a picture of the footprint-shaped impression its robotic arm scoop left on its trial run, Nasa said.
Scientists say they may have discovered ice on Mars. They have reported that when soil was blown away as Nasa’s Phoenix robot spacecraft descended and landed on the Red Planet last Sunday, it may have exposed an outcrop of ice according to images taken near one of the probe’s footpads.
A small science probe blazed through the salmon-colored skies of Mars on Sunday, touching down on a frozen desert at the planet’s north pole to search for water and assess conditions for sustaining life, Nasa officials said. It marked the first time that a spacecraft had successfully landed at one of the planet’s polar regions.
Space engineers were on Saturday making their last nervous preparations for the landing of their Phoenix probe near the north pole of Mars next Sunday. The spacecraft — designed to look for reservoirs of water and ice in the Martian arctic — has been built using duplicate parts left over from two previous space missions.
It was once considered the most dangerous object in the universe, heading for Earth with the explosive power of 84 Hiroshimas. Now an asteroid called 2000SG344, a lump of rock barely the size of a large yacht, is in the spotlight again, this time as a contender for the next giant leap for mankind.
The ”DC Madam,” whose arrest for running a high-end prostitution ring sent sex-scandal tremors through the United States capital, hanged herself on Thursday in a shed at her mother’s house, police said. Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted last month on federal racketeering charges for running the prostitution ring for the rich, famous and powerful.
Fears that the rapid draining of water from the top of Greenland’s ice sheet may be contributing to the rise of global sea levels have been allayed by new research. Though scientists confirmed that the water can drain away faster than Niagara Falls, it did not seem to accelerate the movement of the ice sheet into the ocean as previously thought.
A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected Nasa’s estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with the Earth, a German newspaper reported on Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated. Nico Marquardt calculated that there is a one-in-450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth.
Fictional robots always have a personality: Marvin was paranoid, C-3PO was fussy and HAL 9000 was murderous. But reality is disappointingly different. Sophisticated enough to assemble cars and assist during complex surgery, modern robots are dumb automatons, incapable of striking up relationships with humans. But that could soon change.
It was one small step for man, but could be one giant leap in the career of an actor. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, is to be the subject of a Hollywood biopic. The only question now is: Who is worthy of filling the space boots of the 20th-century icon who ”came in peace for all mankind”?
One of the world’s leading climate scientists warns on Monday that the European Union and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.
A cattle farmer in Australia’s remote northern outback on Friday said he had found a giant ball of twisted metal, which he believes is space junk from a rocket used to launch communications satellites. James Stirton found the odd-shaped ball last year on on his 40 000 hectare property, about 800km west of Brisbane.
Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew are home after carrying Japan’s maiden space laboratory and a Canadian repair robot to the International Space Station (ISS) on a record-setting mission. Endeavour landed at the Kennedy Space Centre after a 16-day mission that included a record 12-day docking at the ISS and five spacewalks.
Space shuttle Endeavour headed for home on Wednesday after delivering a Japanese module and a Canadian robot to the International Space Station. Its 16-day mission was scheduled to end with a landing at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 23.05pm GMT, 33 minutes before sundown.
Spacewalking astronauts stashed an inspection boom to the outside of the International Space Station on Saturday to assure the next shuttle crew can scrutinise their ship for damage. Latching the boom to the outside of the station was the primary task of the fifth and final spacewalk conducted by the Endeavour crew.
Wanted for unique opportunity: brilliant, physically fit people. Must be cool under pressure, willing to work away from home and have a good head for heights. Free uniform included. The wording might be a little different, but when the advert appears in newspapers in the next few weeks, it will mark the beginning of one of the most exciting recruitment drives in more than 40 years.
A pair of astronauts ended a spacewalk late on Thursday in which they tested a repair procedure for the heat shields on the space-shuttle fleet — a technique Nasa hopes it never needs to use. During the over six-hour outing the pair also replaced a faulty circuit breaker and removed a thermal sock from the station’s new Canadian-built handyman robot.
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/ 24 February 2008
The amount of debris orbiting the Earth has reached a critical level. Old satellite parts, solar panels and the odd astronaut’s lost glove now pose serious risks to space missions. A report from the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety is calling for stringent international laws to be brought in to avert a tragedy.
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/ 19 February 2008
Recent cases of spying involving the mayor of Cape Town and a report alleging a conspiracy to bring down the government are part of apartheid ”baggage”, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said in Cape Town on Tuesday. He said it is a ”knee-jerk reaction” to assume that the National Intelligence Agency is behind such cases.
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/ 11 February 2008
Two spacewalking astronauts floated out of a hatch on the International Space Station on Monday to help install a new European lab, while a crewmate who was supposed to participate in the outing helped from inside. Spacewalkers Rex Walheim and Stanley Love ventured outside as the space station passed over Asia.
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/ 7 February 2008
The death toll from a series of tornadoes that swept the southern United States was rising on Wednesday night while rescuers continued to sift the rubble of flattened buildings. At least 54 people were killed and hundreds more injured, many critically, as the deadliest twisters for more than 20 years struck before dawn.
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/ 2 February 2008
The songs of The Beatles have always enjoyed a global appeal. Now one of their best-loved recordings is to be beamed into the galaxy in an attempt to introduce the Fab Four’s music to alien ears. Nasa will broadcast the song, Across the Universe, through the transmitters of its deep-space communications network on Monday.
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/ 27 January 2008
A large American spy satellite is expected to fall to Earth some time in the next month, officials said on Saturday. It is unclear where the space debris might come down, but it could hit ground in late February or March. It is also not known whether the satellite could contain potentially hazardous materials, such as a nuclear-powered reactor.
Some time before 2050, satellites collecting solar power and beaming it back to Earth will become a primary energy source, streaming terawatts of electricity continuously from space. That’s if you believe a recent report from the Pentagon’s National Security Space Office.
Some time before 2050, satellites collecting solar power and beaming it back to Earth will become a primary energy source, streaming terawatts of electricity continuously from space. That’s if you believe a recent report from the Pentagon’s National Security Space Office.
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/ 16 December 2007
British-born science fiction author Arthur C Clarke, who turns 90 on Sunday, says all he wishes for is peace in his adopted home Sri Lanka where he has lived for the past five decades. Sri Lanka’s most celebrated guest resident since 1956, Clarke said he had sadly watched a bitter ethnic conflict dividing his adopted country.
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/ 6 December 2007
Nasa postponed the launch, scheduled for Thursday, of the United States space shuttle Atlantis after discovering a problem with a sensor in the spacecraft’s fuel tank, officials said. The US space agency planned to try again on Friday to launch Europe’s long-delayed Columbus science laboratory to the International Space Station.
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/ 28 November 2007
Southern California is sunny, the French Riviera is sunny, but Nasa says the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the Sahara Desert in Niger are the sunniest — and the information could be worth money. The space exploration agency has located the world’s sunniest spots by studying maps compiled by United States and European satellites.
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/ 25 November 2007
A British opera singer who sang Croatia’s national anthem before their crucial football victory over England blundered by accidentally singing about his manhood, British media reported on Friday. Tony Henry’s explicit rendition was delivered before about 90 000 fans at London’s Wembley Stadium.
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/ 11 November 2007
For four decades, residents of the tiny Pennsylvania town of Kecksburg have told their story of strange blue lights in the sky one winter’s evening and a fireball crashing into woods. In 1965, they say, they saw armed soldiers cordoning off the area and a large, metallic, acorn-shaped object driven off at speed on the back of a lorry.