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Last week’s events have asteroid hunters feeling both vindicated and excited as they step up efforts to develop better detection methods.

The fear of death. That’s how a friend of mine who works in television described the essential ingredient of hit reality shows like Ice Road Truckers. That’s why people watch. […]

NASA surveys have located 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids and comets larger than 1 kilometer in diameter and projected their orbits at least a century ahead.

Nobody said putting a man or woman on the surface of Mars was going to be easy. As NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin explains in his new book, Mission to Mars, it’s […]

Planetary Resources isn’t the first company formed around the mission of extracting valuable metals from the asteroid belt, but it may be the first one with some real investor belief and funding behind it.

Do you believe in free will? Some physicists and neuroscientists believe in the opposite proposition: determinism. The mathematics of quantum mechanics have a say in this argument: Determinism is impossible […]

Last month’s report from the National Research Council suggests that some objectives set by the Obama administration should be reevaluated in light of “national consensus” about space research and exploration.

So BIG THINK published a sensible little essay by the distinguished public intellectual John Gray.  He says don’t think about immortality as something you can achieve through your own efforts. […]

As if astronauts didn’t have enough to worry about: A new study is the first to examine the impact of prolonged exposure on neurodegeneration, which contributes to the development of the disease.

If you thought the Internet of Things was a big idea, what about an Internet that connects humans with apes, elephants and dolphins? In what has to be one of the most […]

Now that a second Obama presidency is assured, the agency expects to reveal its progress towards fulfilling the administration’s space travel mandate.

NASA has agreed to fund a study into whether or not mining asteroids for precious metals and minerals is economically sound. Surely not at the moment, but it might be in the future…

Can’t go over it. Can’t go under it. Can’t go around it. Gotta go through it. Many generations will remember with affection growing up singing the song above. This generation […]

A British computational scientist has built a presentation reminiscent of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, this time showing the consequences of the Earth’s population boom. 

A recently-published study documents scientists’ use of carbon-based molecules, ice, and lasers to duplicate one theory of how life may have evolved on Earth.

The Russian government has revealed the existence of a field containing enough diamonds to turn the country into a much greater player in the gem industry.

Along with Romney’s 13% tax bill and Pussy Riot, the other media sensation of recent weeks has been cheaters.  After Jonah Lehrer’s sloppy multitasking and Fareed Zakaria’s “journalistic lapse,” now […]

It has recently occurred to me that I’m Martian. My friends have taken to smiling and nodding when I talk about this. Some of them have been persuaded. Some of […]

With private companies announcing their intentions to mine the lunar surface and asteroids for precious minerals, legal questions have arisen over how far the concept of ownership can be applied. 

A young Russian entrepreneur is courting the world’s richest men and women to fund his plans to make humans immortal. Called the 2045 Initiative, the quicker funding is found, the better. 

A new company has been launched with the specific purpose of mining near-Earth asteroids for precious metals. Without massive technological advancement, however, the economics won’t work. 

A new company has been launched with the specific purpose of mining near-Earth asteroids for precious metals. Without massive technological advancement, however, the economics won’t work. 

We’re sorry to inform you that the space mining position you were seeking has been filled. That’s the message from Planetary Resources, who was inundated with resumes to mine space rocks. 

Dr, Michio Kaku: Sadly, the US government will no longer boldly go into space. Its up to private enterprise to now pick up the slack and it appears that is exactly what its doing.

The moon is closer, we can get there faster, lunar missions are less risky and equipped with better technology. The company MoonEx has been planning lunar mining with NASA for years.

While talk of mining near-Earth asteroids has concentrated on metals like gold and platinum, the real treasure may be mining water and using its hydrogen to propel ambitious space missions. 

A new venture called Planetary Resources plans to send a fleet of droids to space to prospect the most valuable near-Earth asteroids. The project will require billions of investment dollars but could yield a trillion dollar reward. 

As I’m writing this post, NASA’s latest Mars mission – the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity – is just hours away from its destination. By the time you […]

The discovery of the Higgs boson was a real milestone for physics, a tremendous vindication of the hard work of thousands of physicists and engineers for the past 30 years. […]

“Do you know how rarely the news in 2012 looks and sounds how you thought news would look and sound in 2012?” joked Jon Stewart on a recent episode of […]