Space

Russia To Send Gun-Toting Humanoid Into Space

6:36am April 17, 2017

Russia's space-bound robot FEDOR, Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, is being trained to shoot guns from both of its hands. An official says the robot is not a real-life Terminator.

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New NASA evidence suggests that there's a chemical reaction taking place under the moon's icy surface that could provide conditions for life.

Science

Signs Of Hospitality To Life Found On Saturn's Moon Enceladus

6:26pm April 13, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

"This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment," NASA says. There are signs of a promising reaction under the surface.

The new report from leading U.S. scientists shines a spotlight on how the research enterprise as a whole creates incentives that can be detrimental to good research.

Top Scientists Revamp Standards To Foster Integrity In Research

4:21pm April 11, 2017

by Richard Harris

The National Academy of Sciences has toughened up its guidelines to call cutting corners, dubious statistics and not fully sharing research methods "detrimental" to science.

NASA's Cassini Begins Its Final Mission Before Self-Destruction

5:12pm April 05, 2017

NASA's Cassini's spacecraft will begin the final stages of its 20-year mission to Saturn before diving into the planet and ending its lengthy stretch orbiting the planet.

The first stage on Thursday's launch was used last April to send supplies to the space station.

Launch, Land, Launch — SpaceX Tries Reusing Its Rocket

4:57pm March 29, 2017

by Geoff Brumfiel

Thursday the private company SpaceX plans on launching a satellite using a rocket that it has launched once before. Reusing equipment could make it cheaper to do business in deep space.

The Fight For Pluto's Fate As A Planet Continues

5:09am March 22, 2017

About a decade ago Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet. Now scientists are arguing that because of shape and surface features, Pluto and 110 bodies in our solar system deserve to be planets.

Music & Culture

Chuck Berry Immortalized On Voyager Space Mission

4:39pm March 20, 2017

In 1977, a recording of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was included on a golden disc sent to space with the Voyager mission. The mission continues today.

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A still from a film recently digitized by a team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The film shows a 1958 explosion at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Science

Digitization Unearths New Data From Cold War-Era Nuclear Test Films

8:21pm March 16, 2017

by Laurel Wamsley

The U.S. conducted hundreds of atmospheric nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962 — and filmed them. A project to digitize those films has changed the analysis of the nuclear explosions themselves.

An artist's impression of a white dwarf in an extremely close orbit around what's believed to be a black hole. The star is so close that much of its material is being pulled away.

Science

Scientists Catch Star And Possible Black Hole In A Rapid, Dangerous Dance

3:18pm March 14, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

The white dwarf is whizzing around what researchers think is a black hole at an extraordinary speed — at least twice an hour. It is believed to be a star's closest known orbit to a black hole.

In July 2016, Rubins (left) and Jeff Williams (right), inside the International Space Station, maneuvered a supply spacecraft for docking.

A Microbe Hunter Plies Her Trade In Space

8:42am March 14, 2017

by Rae Ellen Bichell

Meet Kate Rubins, a virus-hunter turned astronaut. When she sequenced DNA in space for the first time, she opened the door to a new era in space biology.

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