China is shifting its space program into high gear, with recently announced goals to build a manned space station by 2020 and send a spacecraft to Mars by 2013 — all on the heels of its second robotic moon mission this year. Yet some space analysts worry that China’s ascendancy in space means the waning of American superiority in spaceflight. The United States is retiring its storied space... 

The new life forms up close, at five micrometers. NASA has discovered a new life form, a bacteria called GFAJ-1 that is unlike anything currently living in planet Earth. It’s capable of using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything. Updated. NASA is saying that this is “life as we do not know it”. The reason is that all life on Earth is... 

An artist’s concept of a lake on Titan, “the only place in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface. NASA is holding a press conference on Thursday “to discuss an astrobiology finding.” Are they going to announce that they’ve found evidence of extraterrestrial life? Blogger Jason Kottke took a look at NASA’s press release, which touts “an... 

NASA will hold a news conference to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. The news conference will be held at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2 at the NASA Headquarters auditorium. The live broadcast of the conference will be available at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv . Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of... 

NASA says this is not a space diaper, but it is. They call it the Maximum Absorbency Garment. But why do astronauts use them? Quite simply, when astronauts are sitting in the Space Shuttle, strapped to their seats and ready to go, they may experience very long delays. Sometimes even hours. And when that happens, they just can’t get off their seats to go to the toilet. They just have to do it,... 

Spirit, the poor Mars Rover that’s been stuck in Martian sand since last year, has actually contributed to a pretty fantastic discovery in its sedentary months: the evidence of subsurface water on Mars. To recap: Spirit, one of two plucky Mars Rovers that had finished their initial missions in 2004 and had embarked upon, as NASA calls them, “bonus missions” ever since, slipped through... 

A conspiracy theorist noticed that an image in NASA’s Astronomy Picture Of The Day had noticeable Photoshop brushstrokes in it, when you turned up the contrast. Is there a mysterious object hiding near Saturn’s moons? Check out the official image of Dione and Titan, above. A YouTube user named DominatorPS3 turned up the contrast on the image, and discovered brush strokes. You can just... 

Click to enlarge This photo shows the Antenna galaxies, which started colliding 100 million years ago, creating millions of stars in the process which later exploded as supernovas. I really find it hard and sad to know that I’ll never see this live. But at least we have the telescopes to see it from here. The image of the galaxy—which is located 62 million light-years away from Earth—was... 

With July in full force, it already feels like the Sun’s rays are slobbering down our necks. But what if it were closer to us? Say, 90 million miles closer? Popular Science investigates how near we could go and survive. Even though the life-giving fireball burns at an unfathomable 9,940°F, PopSci notes that its heat fades quickly with distance in space’s vacuum, so that even at relatively... 

The sun is about to get a lot more active, which could have ill effects on Earth. So to prepare, top sun scientists met Tuesday to discuss the best ways to protect Earth’s satellites and other vital systems from the coming solar storms. Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun’s activity typically... 

Saturn's moon, Titan, pictured using ultraviolet and infrared cameras on board the space probe Cassini. Scientists now believe that the moon could harbour life Scientists have found evidence that there is life on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan. They have discovered clues that primitive aliens are breathing in Titan’s atmosphere and feeding on fuel at the surface. The startling discoveries,... 

Saturn Hexagon There’s the odd fact that one of Jupiter’s huge red stripes — which is really a massive storm system many times larger than planet Earth — has suddenly disappeared (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet…). Known as the “Southern Equatorial Belt”, this storm system isn’t exactly permanent: Jupiter’s belts undergo striking transformations... 

This stunning picture is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that shows our home as a planetary disc, with the Moon in the distance (click on the image to enlarge it) This stunning picture is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that shows our home as a planetary disc, with the Moon in the distance. Captured by Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as the spacecraft... 

"Biomorphs" found on meteorites traced to Mars have been proposed as evidence that life has existed on the Red Planet. NASA’s Mars Meteorite Research Team reopened a 14-year-old controversy on extraterrestrial life last week, reaffirming and offering support for its widely challenged assertion that a 4-billion-year-old meteorite that landed thousands of years ago on Antarctica shows... 

Mystery ... scientists are already planning more missions to Mars NASA scientists last night unveiled compelling evidence of life on Mars. A special mission to the Red Planet has revealed the likely presence of a form of pond scum – the building blocks of life as we know it. NASA unveiled the results of the recent Opportunity and Spirit probes sent millions of miles through the solar system to...