Earthquake "Rocked our world"

“The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth’s rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday,” reports Space.com.

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International Space Station

USA Today has a very cool Flash timeline that shows the International Space Station being built section by section. Check out the website here.

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Can you hear me now?

“Aliens are less likely to be able to pick up signals from Earth and make contact – Fainter broadcasting signals and digital switchover mean Earth will soon be undetectable to extraterrestrials,” Robin McKie for Guardian.co.uk.

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“The off-world paparazzi are out in force, speculating on the possibilities of alien life. Some scientists are initiating a much more active approach in pursuit of alien intelligence on other planets,” reports TopNews.us.

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Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

SETI Opens All Data and Coding to the Public – “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) just announced that it is releasing all information to the public. SETIQuest.org was launched on Wednesday to facilitate the release and help coordinate an ‘army of citizen scientists’ to help search for anomalies in interstellar microwave patterns,” reports Ole Ole Olson for NEWS JUNKIE POST.

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That little dot is Earth

By NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE - This week marks the 20th anniversary of a photograph. It’s a very dramatic photo, even though, at first glance, it’s mostly dark and seems to show nothing at all.

But if you look closely, you can see a tiny speck of light. That speck is the Earth, seen from very, very, very far away.

Two decades ago, Candice Hansen-Koharcheck became the first person to ever see that speck, sitting in front of a computer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California. “I was all alone, actually, that afternoon, in my office,” she recalls…

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It's a mine field of satellites

‘My Debris field is bigger than yours,” reports Jeremy Hsu for Popular Science. “Space debris remains one of the biggest challenges for a space-faring humanity in the 21st century, as even the smallest pieces can pose a serious threat to satellites, manned spacecraft and the International Space Station – Now our friends at Fast Company have stumbled on a nifty infographic by Austrian designer Michael Paukner that lays out the space clutter situation more clearly.”

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The Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB)

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced that its high-powered airborne laser successfully shot down a ballistic missile during a recent test.

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NASA's Robot Astronaut

With the Obama administration axing a proposed manned space flight back to the moon, this could be just the right time for a robot that’s also an astronaut. Far fetched? Check out what NASA and General Motors just created.

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Speeding through the vacuum of space at a mere 11,000mph – The object, officially called P/2010-A2, was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in January. The strangest thing is not only the X-shaped object, but the fact that its 460-foot-wide nucleus is outside the dust halo and separated from the trail. This behavior is something never before seen before in a comet – If it’s even a comet.

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I know Santa!

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment commissioned the survey, which polled 1,000 children aged between 5 and 16, to coincide with the DVD release of the film Aliens In The Attic. Survey findings revealed that less than one in ten 16 year-olds can name all eight planets in the solar system, and that there is little difference between what teenagers and younger children know about space, with 95% of five-year-olds failing to name all the planets, compared with 94% of 16-year-olds.

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Bye-bye moon

The budget request, released Monday, would scrap NASA’s Constellation program to build the Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets for new manned moon missions — a $9 billion investment to date. The request calls for $19 billion in funding for NASA in 2011, a slight increase from the $18.3 billion it spent in 2010.

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Lately, NASA throws one hell of a pre-launch party

(CNN) — NASA says it has launched an investigation after finding cocaine in a processing hangar for a space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A small amount of cocaine was found in a restricted area of the processing hangar for the shuttle Discovery, NASA said in a statement.

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One second-hand space shuttle… Anyone? “Looking for a good deal during the recession? Space geeks don’t have to look any further than NASA, where they can pick up a retired space shuttle for the bargain-basement price of $28.8 million,” reports Jason Paur for Wired.com.

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Will Kepler find other worlds?

London, England (CNN) — The portrayal of alien life on far-flung planets has been a favorite storyline for filmmakers down the years and is a perennial hit with audiences. “Avatar” has proved no different with the film doing record business at the box-office. In “Avatar,” humans visit an alien moon called Pandora. Scientists believe that habitable moons may soon be a scientific fact.

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WASHINGTON — The list of known exoplanets in the galaxy just got bigger, thanks to the first observations from NASA’s new Kepler space telescope, which found five new lightweight worlds orbiting distant stars. (continue reading…)

We have 20 years to prepare

MOSCOW – “Russia’s space agency chief said Wednesday a spacecraft may be dispatched to knock a large asteroid off course and reduce the chances of earth impact, even though U.S. scientists say such a scenario is unlikely,” reports Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press Writer.

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Lunar Hole on the Moon

(CNN) — Building a home near a moon crater or a lunar sea may sound nice, but moon colonists might have a much better chance of survival if they just lived in a hole.

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Planet known as GJ 1214b

Astronomers announced this week they found a water-rich and relatively nearby planet that’s similar in size to Earth. “Astronomers say they have detected a planet just six and a half times as massive as Earth – at a distance so close its atmosphere could be studied, and with a density so low it’s almost certain to have abundant water,” reports Alan Boyle for MSNBC.

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“Scientists are on their way to discovering thousands of new planets, potentially including hundreds of worlds the size of Earth, in Earth-like orbits around sunlike stars – They expect to achieve that goal within three years or so. But they’ll start with the weirdest worlds,” reports Alan Boyle for CNN.com. (continue reading…)

Spiral 'Star-Gate' appears to open up in the sky

A mysterious giant spiral of light that dominated the sky over Norway this morning has stunned experts — who believe the space spectacle is an entirely new astral phenomenon.

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Mojave, California (CNN) — Billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson on Monday unveiled the winged rocket his company developed to give paying customers a brief taste of space.

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Scientists at NASA say recent tests on a meteorite from London’s Natural History Museum show what is believed to be a fossilized colony of Martian micro-bacteria. (continue reading…)

“The date is Dec. 9, 1965: Residents see a ball of fire shooting through the darkening evening sky and then, seemingly, the object — purportedly shaped like a jumbo-sized acorn after impact — makes some sort of controlled crash into the woods. From there, the strangeness factor escalates with purported military personnel isolating the area from curious onlookers and toting something out of the locale on a flatbed truck,” reports Leonard David for Space.com and MSNBC. (continue reading…)

(CNN) — NASA said Friday it had discovered water on the moon, opening “a new chapter” that could allow for the development of a lunar space station. (continue reading…)

(FOX News) “The latest trend in eco-tourism is completely out of this world … and right around the corner,” reports Gene J. Koprowski. (continue reading…)

Love in an elevator

LOS ANGELES — “A Seattle team has collected a $900,000 prize in a NASA-backed competition to develop the concept of an elevator to space — an idea spurred by science fiction novels – The team’s robotic machine raced up more than 2,950 feet of cable dangling from a helicopter,” reports John Antczak for the Associated Press. (continue reading…)

Star Trek's Replicator

“Space explorers have yet to get their hands on the replicator of “Star Trek” to create anything they might require. But NASA has developed a technology that could enable lunar colonists to carry out on-site manufacturing on the moon, or allow future astronauts to create critical spare parts during the long trip to Mars,” reports MSNBC.com. (continue reading…)

“Robotic airships and satellites will fly above the surface of the distant world, commanding squadrons of wheeled rovers and floating robot boats, according to Wolfgang Fink of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech),” reports Tom Chivers for Telegraph.co.uk.

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(CNN) — Thirty-two planets have been discovered outside Earth’s solar system through the use of a high-precision instrument installed at a Chilean telescope, an international team announced Monday.

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