Science News

Astronauts worked to outfit Europe's new permanent space laboratory on Saturday as a busy visit by NASA's shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station neared its end.

The United States will have the chance to shoot down a disabled U.S. spy satellite from next Wednesday, after the space shuttle Atlantis ends its current mission, a U.S. general said on Friday.

U.S. physicists have made a clock so accurate it will neither gain nor lose even a second in more than 200 million years, a finding sure to please even the most punctually minded.

Two shuttle Atlantis astronauts resumed work outside the International Space Station on Friday to attach experiments to the hull of Europe's newly delivered research outpost.

The United States pledged on Friday to compensate countries if debris lands on their territory from a dying U.S. spy satellite that the Pentagon plans to shoot down.

The U.S. decision to shoot down an ailing spy satellite raises new concerns about an arms race in space and could drive Russia and China to respond, analysts said on Thursday, voicing skepticism about the explanation for the move.

Astronauts and ground control teams hustled to get Europe's newly delivered space laboratory prepared for science experiments on Thursday as NASA ironed out plans for a final spacewalk by the shuttle Atlantis crew.

The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled U.S. spy satellite before it enters the atmosphere to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas from the vehicle's fuel tank, officials said on Thursday.

The United States must collaborate with other countries to achieve its goal of putting humans on Mars or it may fall short of its aims, scientists and former space officials said on Thursday.

(Corrects NASA budget numbers, paragraph 8)
The United States must collaborate with other countries to achieve its goal of putting humans on Mars or it may fall short of its aims, scientists and former space officials said on Thursday.

Astronauts and ground control teams hustled to get Europe's newly delivered space laboratory prepared for science experiments on Thursday as NASA ironed out plans for a final spacewalk by the shuttle Atlantis crew.

Astronomers and amateur stargazers have used an unusual technique to find a solar system that closely resembles our own and say it may be a new and more productive way to scour the universe for planets -- and life.

Fossils from two newly discovered meat-eating dinosaurs that lived in the Sahara Desert 110 million years ago paint a fearsome picture of life in Africa's Cretaceous period, which appears to have been teeming with unusual carnivores.

Spacewalking astronauts installed a refrigerator-sized tank of gas needed for the International Space Station's cooling system on Wednesday, while crewmates worked inside the outpost to outfit Europe's newly arrived space laboratory.

People who migrated from Asia to the New World camped out for 20,000 years on land now submerged under the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia, according to a genetic analysis published on Tuesday.

Italian scientists say they have proved Napoleon was not poisoned, scotching the legend the French emperor was murdered by his British jailors.

Two European astronauts slipped inside Europe's newly installed Columbus laboratory module on Tuesday while crewmates prepared for a second spacewalk to outfit the International Space Station for new additions.

Europe finally got a place of its own in space when astronauts attached the European laboratory Columbus to the International Space Station on Monday.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Monday for a global programme to explore Mars, bringing together European states and more established space powers like the United States and Russia.

Astronauts installed the European laboratory Columbus on the International Space Station on Monday, finally giving Europe its first permanent research facility in space.