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Buzz Aldrin poses with a solar backpack and gear from his limited-edition “Mission to Mars” fashion line with Sprayground. As Lunar Module pilot for NASA’s historic Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin flew to the moon and back in a space capsule. Now, the former fighter pilot, aerospace engineer, bestselling author and reality-show contestant is setting […]

Jupiter’s ocean-harboring moon may have plate tectonics, a new study suggests. The case for plate tectonics on Jupiter’s ocean-harboring moon Europa keeps getting stronger. Scientists had already spotted geological signs that plates within the moon’s ice shell may be diving beneath one another toward the moon’s buried ocean. Now, a new study suggests that such […]

The International Space Station is not as squeaky clean as you might think, a new study finds. The microbes living on the International Space Station (ISS) may be similar to the bacteria found in homes on Earth, a new study shows.  A joint team of professional scientists and citizen scientists from Project MERCCURI (or Microbial […]

NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless performs an untethered spacewalk. Being “lost in space” is a nightmare scenario for astronauts, but they soon could be sleeping easier.  Engineers have filed a patent for a spacesuit self-return system to ensure spacewalking astronauts are safe, even if none of their crewmates can rescue them. This system is, essentially, a […]

An experiment that resulted in various flowering plants, especially in a Mars soil simulant. The pots were put in water to keep the soil containing the earthworms cool. In what could be an important milestone for future farmers on Mars, two healthy baby worms were recently born in simulated Martian soil. The births took place […]

A computer-generated montage shows Neptune from the perspective of a spacecraft approaching Triton, the planet’s largest moon. Neptune’s original family of satellites may have been destroyed when its largest moon, Triton, entered the picture. New research suggests that the massive moon may have tossed some of the original satellites into the ice giant, kicked others […]

A map of the cosmic microwave background made by NASA’s WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) mission, with color differences showing fluctuations in temperature. A team of researchers who helped shape our understanding of the origin, evolution and nature of the cosmos is now $3 million richer. Those folks worked on NASA’s WMAP space mission , […]

A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft approaches to be captured by the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm-2. More than 2,000 are expected to head to Houston this week for SpaceCom 2017, the third annual Space Commerce Conference and Exposition. The conference will bring commercial spaceflight leaders and innovators together from Dec. 5 to Dec. 7 to […]

December’s full moon rises tonight (Dec. 3), bringing the only “supermoon ” of the year on its heels.  This month’s full moon, known as the Full Cold Moon, peaks this morning, but will shine bright all night. The moon then reaches perigee — its closest point to Earth in a given orbit — early Monday […]

Sunday night’s Full Cold Moon – a bigger and brighter full moon than usual – will kick off a very special “supermoon trilogy,” NASA says. The Dec. 3 full moon is the first of three consecutive supermoons, including a lunar eclipse. The other supermoons will happen on Jan. 1 and Jan. 31, 2018. You can watch […]

Rep. Steve Knight (R-Calif.) discussed the NASA Caucus in Congress that he co-founded during a Nov. 30 Commercial Spaceflight Federation breakfast speech. Updated 12:25 p.m. Eastern. WASHINGTON — The co-founder of a new congressional caucus devoted to NASA  said he hopes to use it to advocate for the agency’s needs in Congress once a new administrator […]

“The Deep Space Gateway is a concept for government-led exploration endeavors,: Kathy Laurini, NASA senior adviser for exploration and space operations, said during a Global Exploration Roadmap community workshop at the NASA Ames Research Center Nov. 29. “It is a commitment to being there. And because we are there, it will offer opportunities for commercial […]

The shallow Don Juan Pond is almost 45 percent salts by weight. A shallow, briny pond located in the most Mars-like region on Earth is probably being fed by groundwater seeping up , rather than moisture seeping down from the atmosphere, providing clues as to what stores of liquid water, if they exist, might look […]