outer space

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'Snowball Fight' Spotted in Saturn's Weirdest Ring

Cassini probe captures objects punching through ring

(Newser) - Inside Saturn's outermost ring, NASA's Cassini probe has captured activity that researchers liken to a cosmic snowball fight. Hundreds of balls of snow and ice up to half a mile in diameter have been spotted punching through the F ring at gentle speeds, leaving glittering trails behind them,...

Yes, It's Real: New Company Will Mine Asteroids

It will scour near-earth sites for precious metals

(Newser) - It's official, earthlings: The world's first asteroid-mining company has launched. Planetary Resources had its official coming out party today, the AP reports, with its co-founders laying out their plan to mine outer space for precious metal. The company, which is backed by such big-name investors as James Cameron...

Scientists Developing GPS for the Galaxy

X-rays from dead stars could provide location in space within 3 miles

(Newser) - A GPS in a car can precisely navigate a city, but what if a GPS in a spaceship could precisely navigate our galaxy? German scientists are developing that very gadgetry, reports the BBC . This interstellar mapping system would use X-ray signals from pulsars, a type of dead star that rotates...

Milky Way Has Tens of Billions of Habitable Planets

These super-Earths are all over the galaxy, say scientists

(Newser) - Could aliens be hanging out in the Milky Way? A new discovery by astronomers shows they'd have plenty of possible homes in the galaxy, reports Reuters . The researchers found that tens of billions of planets reside in a habitable zone close to a star, allowing water to flow on...

Rare 'Rectangular' Galaxy Spotted

'Emerald cut' shape probably the result of two galaxies colliding

(Newser) - The vast majority of galaxies fall into one of three categories—football-shaped, irregular, or a disc with spiral arms. But LEDA 074886 is a strange one. When viewed from our planet, the dwarf galaxy has a strange, rectangular, "emerald cut" shape. Its discoverers believe the galaxy is shaped like...

Russia Plans Moonwalk by 2030

Leaked documents reveal deadline

(Newser) - Russia will finally send a human to the moon. At least it's planning to—by 2030, according to a leaked document from Roskosmos, the Russian Space agency. The Russians have intermittently laid forth enthusiastic goals for space exploration in recent years, reports the Telegraph , but never with a set...

Ancient Asteroid May Explain Moon's Magnetic Mystery

Collision resulted in magnetized rock, say scientists

(Newser) - One of the moon's oddest anomalies is how parts of its crust have a magnetic field and others don't. But now scientists say they have a relatively simple theory for this inconsistency—a 120-mile-wide asteroid that smashed into the moon's south pole 4.5 billion years ago...

Angry Birds Head Off Into Outer Space

Rovio's app sequel will launch March 22

(Newser) - The Angry Birds are lifting off into outer space. The upcoming sequel of the blockbuster app franchise—which has logged more than 500 million downloads—will see the belligerent feathered creatures exploring the vast realm beyond planet Earth. Angry Birds Space will launch March 22, reports USA Today's Game...

Swiss 'Janitor Satellite' to Clean Space Junk

It will push defunct satellites into the atmosphere to burn up

(Newser) - Switzerland is on a mean cleaning bender: The fastidious folks at the Swiss Space Center are building a "janitor satellite" that will grab space junk orbiting the Earth and push it into the atmosphere to burn up, the AP reports. The first of these spacecraft, the $11 million "...

NASA Spots 'Alien Matter' From Beyond Solar System

Interstellar cloud unlike anything else ever analyzed

(Newser) - A cloud of material from elsewhere in the galaxy has slipped inside our solar system's protective bubble, and it is fundamentally different from anything else scientists have ever seen. The "alien matter" was spotted and analyzed by a NASA probe exploring the edge of the solar system, CBS...

Teens Launch Lego Man Way, Way Up There

Video captures weather balloon flight above Earth

(Newser) - Two Toronto teens have launched a Lego Man to startling new heights: 14 miles above sea level, to be exact. Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammad attached him to a weather balloon that soared about three times higher than your typical airliner. The 97-minute flight came down softly by parachute some...

Russia: US May Have Killed Probe

Expert calls suggestion that US radar station interfered 'contrived'

(Newser) - Russia's failed Mars moon probe may be sleeping with the fishes , but the questions about what went wrong with the Phobos-Grunt have yet to be put to rest. The newest theory: the US did it, inadvertently, of course. Russia is reviewing whether emissions from a US radar station may...

Local Black Hole About to Chow Down

Milky Way's super-massive black hole to devour gas cloud

(Newser) - The super-massive black hole at the heart of our galaxy is about to have a feast—and astronomers think it's going to be messy. A giant gas cloud has been spotted approaching the black hole, which lies some 27,000 light years from Earth. Scientists believe the cloud will...

World's Biggest Plane to Rocket People into Space

Paul Allen project might be ready for tests in 2016

(Newser) - The world's biggest plane, with wings longer than a football field, is being built to launch astronauts and cargo into outer space. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace innovator Burt Rutan have teamed up to create the gargantuan aircraft, which will work by hauling a rocket high into the...

Take a Trip Out of This World
 Take a Trip Out of This World 
Nov 14, 2011 3:35 AM CST

Take a Trip Out of This World

18 sequences of time-lapse photography reveal our electrifying planet

(Newser) - Remember the last 'round-the-world trip we recommended? This one might be even better. It's 18 sequences of time-lapse photography (the first two over the US) taken 240 miles above the earth by the International Space Station and edited by designer Michael König . They make our home look...

Scientists Spot Gas Clouds That Seeded All Life

Early formation created stars that led to our own

(Newser) - Astronomers have caught a first-ever glimpse of gas clouds as they existed just a few minutes after the big bang, the Los Angeles Time s reports. These clouds—long gone by now, but still visible to us—contain lighter elements like hydrogen and helium, which condensed into stars during the...

Jumping Jupiter! 5th Giant Planet Evicted Eons Ago

Theory says it got knocked out of our early solar system

(Newser) - Our young solar system may have had another huge planet that got knocked into deep space by Jupiter, reports Wired . Astronomers at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas arrived at this "Jumping Jupiter" theory because computer simulations can't figure out how our modern solar system emerged as is...

Beam Me Up: NASA Explores 'Tractor Beams'

Study will examine ways to move objects via laser light

(Newser) - "Tractor beams" could soon move from science fiction to science fact, thanks to a NASA-funded study. Ideas for tractor beams—"the ability to trap and move objects using laser light," explains NASA —have been published, but none has been put into practice. "Though a mainstay...

Earth-like Water Spotted on Comet

Oceans may have been formed by collisions with comets

(Newser) - Most of the water that fills the world's oceans—and makes up more than half of the human body—may have started out as comets, not asteroids as current theories hold, according to new research. Scientists using the Herschel telescope found that unlike other comets studied, the comet Hartley...

Europe Planning Mission to the Sun

Solar orbiter to come within 26m miles of sun

(Newser) - The European Space Agency is planning to send a probe much closer to the sun than any before it. The Solar Orbiter mission, to be launched in 2017, will send a heavily heat-shielded spacecraft to within 26 million miles of the sun—10 million miles closer than Mercury. The probe,...

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