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Scientists are working to rule out non-biological explanations for conditions present on Titan, a moon of Saturn, that suggest there could be life on the moon’s surface.

“Is this what will become of the Earth’s surface?” asks the entry for 22 September 2007 of Astronomy Picture of the Day, a website affiliated with Nasa (judging from its […]

If you want to witness a total solar eclipse and you live in Europe, you’re out of luck until at least 2026. Unless you live in one of a few […]

North Korea is the Dark Side of the peninsula, literally.

NASA says our sun is preparing for a stormy period and, according to the National Academy of Sciences, “A major solar storm could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.”

The successful launch of a private rocket into outer space, which could one day take tourists on suborbital flights, comes just as the U.S. government makes deep cuts at NASA.

“A Japanese space probe has landed in the Australian outback after a seven-year voyage to an asteroid, safely returning a capsule containing a unique sample of dust,” says Reuters.

One of the arguments I have been making in talking to journalists is to beware the hype over the relative impact of the climate skeptics movement in contributing to societal […]

MIT is designing commercial aircrafts that use 70 percent less fuel than current airplanes after winning a contract from NASA in 2008; air traffic is expected to double by 2035.

The fourth in my ongoing “Volcano Profile” turns our attention to the southernmost (known) active volcano, Mt. Erebus in Antarctica.

Our Policy Forum article at Science has generated a monster blog discussion, one that is almost too much to keep up with. I continue to try to keep a summary […]

David Keith, director of the Energy and Environmental Systems Group at the University of Calgary, says geoengineering should be “a central part of how we think about managing climate risk over the next 100 years.”

NASA’s new goals were explored in New York last week in light of the reality that the manned spaceflight program has been scrapped. Is it really the end of Americans in space?

Many people were left gasping when President Obama unveiled his new plan for outer space, including his proposal to cancel NASA’s Constellation program. It turns out that the great recession […]

Yesterday a British panel exonerated climate scientists at the center of last year’s Climategate scandal. The scientists had been charged with manipulating scientific evidence to support their beliefs in global […]

Scaling back Bush’s promised manned moon landing left Obama in the cold of deep space, but now compromises are being made with NASA.

An auction house in New York City will soon be auctioning off old space equipment used to help NASA land on the moon during its famous Apollo missions.

The University of Alabama in Huntsville – in partnership with NASA and NOAA – has taken Earth’s temperature, and determined that (based on satellite data collected over the past 32 […]

Americans under the age of 35 have grown up during an era of ever more certain climate science, increasing news attention, alarming entertainment portrayals, and growing environmental activism, yet on […]

When Jill Tarter was growing up, she remembers walking along the beach with her father, gazing up at the night sky. Well before she would become a leader in the […]

Alan Boyle, the science editor for MSNBC.com, answers our questions about science, the mainstream media and the fallout of the Chilean earthquake coverage.

Right now our most advanced robots are not quite as smart as we would want them to be. One of the most popular—Honda’s humanoid robot, Asimo—is quite sophisticated but you won’t […]

A human-shaped robot is being sent to the International Space Station to serve as an assistant to the astronauts living there. The bot will eventually be used to help with extravehicular activities.

We’ve discussed the Ancient Greeks’ snowglobe vision of the Universe(#288), tackled the far-out theories of the Hollow Earth (#85), and yet managed to be surprised by the absurdity of the square […]

The remnants of a vast sheet of ice lies hidden under Martian rubble, revealed by a new and wonderfully detailed radar map of Mars’ mid-latitudes.

With NASA’s future in doubt, the physicist recalls designing an ingenious (and sadly, radioactive) rocket that could have had us “scooting all around the solar system” 50 years ago. Will […]

Last week I participated in a two-day workshop at NSF on climate change education. The meeting brought together researchers in science education, communication, and informal learning; representatives from government agencies […]

NASA’s space shuttle will be retired after the International Space Station is completed next year leaving manned space missions mostly in Russia’s hands.

James Hansen, NASA climate scientist, has argued strongly against Cap and Trade legislation, promoted the need for a carbon tax, complained of muzzling by the Bush administration, and has even […]

We would have made progress on space travel if the NASA budget had allotted 20 percent for prizes that at least half the people thought couldn’t be done.