SPACE

The Hunt is On for Exomoons That May Harbor Life

SPACE The search for life doesn't end at our solar system and it is not limited to just planets. Scientists are now searching for moons orbiting alien planets in other systems that could harbor extraterrestrial life.

Astronomers Adopt a Forming Star, Watching it Grow for 18 Years 4200 Light-Years Away

While researchers may have missed the formation of our very own Sun by a few billion years, in essence they have become surrogate parents to many other stars formed since the dawn of the telescope. Watching one such infant star well into its adulthood, researchers with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory this week released a time lapse of one such star, affectionately named “W75N(B)-VLA 2”, which reveals the earliest formations of a massive young star over the course of 18 years. The beginning and ending images released this week reveal a dramatic difference in the star’s developmental stages and highlights theories that astronomers have posited for decades, as they wondered if they would ever catch a glimpse of stars forming in such a way as researchers today have been able to do.

More Memory Problems for NASA's Opportunity Rover

NASA's Opportunity Rover has been setting records for its time in space and distance traveled, but unfortunately it probably won't remember them. Less than a week after engineers upgraded the software to resolve its memory issues, the rover has experienced yet another bout of amnesia.

Star Wars Tatooine Planet May Be Common

One of the most iconic scenes ever filmed for Star Wars occurred when Luke walked outside his boyhood home on the rocky, desert planet of Tatooine and looked up at the two suns setting. Now, scientists believe that these Earth-like worlds with two suns in their sky may actually be more common than originally thought, throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.

Ants Continue to Colonize Even When in Space

Developing Algorithms from Ants in Space Space, the final frontier; these are the voyages of ants. No seriously, back in January the International Space Station received a shipment of ants.

NASA Set to Extend Mercury Mission for Another Month

The Mercury probe sent by NASA to study the planet closest to the sun isn't ready to finish its groundbreaking work just yet so NASA is taking steps to extend it's mission for at least another month.

US and Russia Begin Planning the Next Space Station

While the United States and Russia relations may be at their lowest point in decades, the space agencies are working together better than they ever have before. NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos today announced plans to build a new space station for when the International Space Station is retired in 2024.

Can People Really Live Forever in Space? New NASA Study Looks to Answer that Question

While you might think that NASA and other space agencies have made great strides in investigating the final frontiers of space, it turns out that there are far too many limitations for what humans are able to do. Astronauts and cosmonauts train for the better part of the lives, learning technical information and perfecting the physical attributes needed to live in space. But when it comes down to mission time, they only have a few months in space—at best. Considering that new missions to Mars will look towards taking human journeys far deeper into space than anyone has been before, NASA’s new experiment is looking into how long exposure to zero-gravity will affect humans. And they’re using a familiar method of testing their hypotheses—twins.

Opportunity Sets Marathon Record on Mars

It seems NASA's Opportunity Rover isn't just content with exceeding its originally designated lifespan by over a decade, it has not set another new record that the space agency's other rovers will have a tough time beating.

Curiosity Finds Live-Supporting Nitrogen on Mars

Curiosity Finds Live-Supporting Nitrogen on Mars NASA's Curiosity Rover has detected the first traces of nitrogen on Mars, a discovery that adds to the mounting evidence that the red planet could have, at one time, supported life.

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