Science, Space | featured news

Astronomers on Monday announced the discovery of 50 new planets circling stars beyond the sun, including one “super-Earth” that is the right distance from its star to possibly have water. “If we are really, really lucky, this planet could be a habitat” like Earth, said Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.

A pair of spacecraft rocketed toward the moon Saturday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what’s inside Earth’s orbiting companion — all the way down to the core. “I could hardly be happier,” said the lead scientist, Maria Zuber. After two days of delays and almost another, “I was trying to be as calm as I could be.”

The first rock a NASA rover looked at when it arrived at a crater on Mars was unlike any looked at on the planet before, scientists said... And the first rock it looked at has already opened a new chapter in the study of Mars, NASA scientists said Thursday. On a telephone news conference, mission scientists giddily described that rock: full of zinc and bromine, elements that, at least for rocks on Earth, would be suggestive of geology formed with heat and water.

Researchers from the Geneva astronomical observatory have discovered a planet which they say is one of the best candidates for the ability to support life.

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

An international astronomy team reports the closest exploding star seen in four decades.

Clouds may make a world orbiting a nearby star suitable for life, reports an international astronomer team.

NASA's surviving Mars rover Opportunity has reached the rim of a 14-mile-wide crater where the robot geologist will examine rocks older than any it has seen in its seven years on the surface of the red planet, scientists said Wednesday....

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: The spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a swirling maw of raw power, measuring 50,000 light-years across. So why on earth do astronomers call it "fluffy"?

NASA's upcoming mission to Jupiter can't get much greener than this: a solar-powered, windmill-shaped spacecraft....