nasa

The moon could have some serious competition in 2013.

No, we're not finally building a real Death Star, no matter how much the American people demand one. I'm talking about a surprise visit from a recently discovered heavenly body known as the comet Ison. The chunk of ice and rock has likely broken free from the Oort cloud and is heading our way right now. If it survives the journey, astronomers say it could become even brighter than our lunar neighbor in the night sky as it makes a pass through our neighborhood next fall.

According to NASA, the wayward comet is currently hurtling toward the sun somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter's orbit. By October, it should come very near Mars, possibly allowing NASA's rovers a view as it shakes its tail in their direction. From there, it appears it will continue toward the center of the solar system, passing within a single solar diameter of the sun's surface before heading back more or less the way it came. … Read more

The Mars Curiosity rover recently detected signs of organic compounds on the Red Planet, but NASA won't call the findings definitive. One holdup is the issue of contamination. The trace amounts may be the result of contamination from the rover itself.

The contamination issue could rear its head again should the rover or future expeditions turn up any microbes. Finding microbes on Mars would be a cause for scientific celebration, but a study published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" shows that Earth microbes could very well survive in the brutal conditions on Mars.… Read more

Around 2015, NASA plans to incorporate a spacesuit that amusingly looks like the one worn by Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story" -- sans the shiny laser beam.

Before you laugh, know that these new digs aren't toy dressings; the Z-1 NASA spacesuit offers a plethora of advantages compared with the space agency's previous designs. Think of it as the baseline architecture for future NASA spacesuits. … Read more

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On this week's show, we check out Tailly, a wearable robotic tail that wags when you get excited. If that gets you wagging, then you'll definitely want to have a look at the Satis Bluetooth toilet that can flush with your smartphone. And in honor of winter, we look at how a snowflake is born. It's the last show of 2012, and we bid you farewell until the new year. The show returns on January 18. … Read more

Braving Arctic temperatures and a brutal wind chill, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft roared to life and streaked smoothly into orbit today, carrying a veteran three-man crew on a two-day flight to the International Space Station.

With commander Roman Romanenko at the controls, the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft climbed away from its launching stand at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:12 a.m. ET (6:12 p.m. local time), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit.

Trailing a fiery jet of brilliant orange exhaust, the workhorse rocket arced … Read more

Going out with a bang, two small NASA probes that flew in formation to precisely map the moon's gravity field crashed into a mile-high mountainside today, slamming into the lunar surface at more than a mile per second to bring a successful $500 million mission to an abrupt end.

The "targeted impacts" were intended to eliminate even a slight chance that one of the satellites might one day fall to the surface at or near a so-called "lunar heritage site," including six where manned Apollo missions landed and more than a dozen where unmanned U.… Read more

Streaking through vacuum at a mile per second just above the cratered surface of the moon, two washing machine-size science probes that have completed their mission to map the lunar gravity field will slam into a mile-high mountainside Monday, bringing a successful $500 million mission to a kamikaze conclusion.

The twin probes, named Ebb and Flow in a student naming contest, have been flying in formation at extremely low altitude since January 1, 2012, mapping subtle changes in the moon's gravitational pull to gain insights into its internal structure.

With all of the mission's scientific objectives accomplished, the … Read more

For those of you with a dirty wit, please lend me some patience before you fly off the rails when I say that a group of NASA interns made a "Gangnam Style" parody named "NASA Johnson Style."

Wondering what's with the song name? Well, NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center houses educational programs for interns and students aspiring to progress further into the field of space science. The eclectic group of youths created a parody video that plays off Psy's "Gangam Style" in a geeky way by amusingly attempting to "inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center," says a related video description. … Read more

NASA hacker Gary McKinnon will face no legal action in the U.K.

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided the appropriate jurisdiction for the McKinnon case is the U.S., after discussing the case with the U.S. Department of Justice and the police.

U.S. authorities started their bid to extradite McKinnon in 2005, accusing him of causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage by hacking into NASA and military systems. McKinnon admitted to the intrusion in 2002 but claimed he was looking for evidence of UFO activity.

But U.S. requests for his extradition were formally turned down … Read more