Subscribe to our Space Exploration News feed
The dramatic conclusion to ESA's latest StarTiger project: a 'dropship' quadcopter steers itself to lower a rover gently onto a safe patch of the rocky martian surface. StarTiger's Dropter project was tasked with developing and demonstrating a European precision-landing capability for Mars and other targets.
Jul 7th, 2014
Read more
Findings deepen our understanding of the future of our own galaxy, which will collide with Andromeda in 5 billion years.
Jul 7th, 2014
Read more
A new report, Technological Breakthroughs for Scientific Progress (TECHBREAK), has been published today by the European Science Foundation.
Jul 4th, 2014
Read more
The dark material found on the protoplanet Vesta contains the mineral serpentine - and must therefore be of exogenic origin.
Jul 4th, 2014
Read more
Satellite x-ray observations reveal a neutron star with a donut-shaped magnetic field and axial wobble.
Jul 4th, 2014
Read more
A new study suggests that normal gravity or hypergravity on the space station may help mitigate some of the biological problems in organisms living in space.
Jul 3rd, 2014
Read more
Mysteries about controversial signals from a star considered a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life now have been solved. The research proves, for the first time, that some of the signals actually are from events inside the star itself, not from the two so-called 'Goldilocks planets', which were suspected to be just-right for life and orbiting the star at a distance where liquid water potentially could exist. No planets there, just star burps.
Jul 3rd, 2014
Read more
Determining the age of stars has long been a challenge for astronomers. In experiments researchers show that 'infant' stars can be distinguished from 'adolescent' stars by measuring the acoustic waves they emit.
Jul 3rd, 2014
Read more
The first data from H.E.S.S. II show the pulsed gamma-ray signal.
Jul 3rd, 2014
Read more
In chambers that mimic Mars' conditions, researchers have shown how small amounts of liquid water could form on the planet despite its below-freezing temperatures.
Jul 2nd, 2014
Read more
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 soon will begin a minimum two-year mission to locate Earth's sources of and storage places for atmospheric carbon dioxide, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas responsible for warming our world and a critical component of the planet's carbon cycle.
Jul 2nd, 2014
Read more
The little-known cloud of cosmic gas and dust called Gum 15 is the birthplace and home of hot young stars. Beautiful and deadly, these stars mould the appearance of their mother nebula and, as they progress into adulthood, will eventually also be the death of her.
Jul 2nd, 2014
Read more
Astronomers using the Herschel space observatory to probe the turbulent beginnings of a Sun-like star have found evidence of mighty stellar winds that could solve a puzzling meteorite mystery in our own back yard.
Jul 1st, 2014
Read more
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been given the go-ahead to conduct an intensive search for a suitable outer solar system object that the New Horizons spacecraft could visit after the probe streaks though the Pluto system in July 2015.
Jul 1st, 2014
Read more
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has found that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is releasing the equivalent of two small glasses of water into space every second, even at a cold 583 million kilometres from the Sun.
Jun 30th, 2014
Read more
Bright spots in a large lake on Titan suggest that Saturn's largest moon supports processes similar to Earth's water cycle.
Jun 30th, 2014
Read more
China is a step closer to setting up a lunar base after a 105-day manned airtight test, in which the bio-regenerative life support systems of Lunar Palace 1 sustained the lives of three trial volunteers.
Jun 27th, 2014
Read moreResearchers have provided another piece of the puzzle with their precise measurements of a rapidly rotating neutron star: one of the smallest, densest stars in the universe.
Jun 27th, 2014
Read more