Space
Building the Buzz for Mars
RADIATION sickness. Brittle bones. Alzheimers. None of these will deter explorers in their quest to establish a foothold on Mars, says Apollo 11 hero Buzz Aldrin.
Strap yourself in. We’re off to Mars
IT’S the greatest challenge mankind has ever undertaken, but a human expedition to Mars is looking less science fiction and more science fact.
‘The universe is tearing itself apart’
THE universe is set to be destroyed in a “big rip” which will suck the whole of reality into a dreadful nightmarish vortex of nothingness.
What life on Mars will look like
THE first ever Mars show home opened in London today — giving a glimpse of how colonisers might live on the Red Planet less than two decades from now.
Get ready for the supermoon
THIS lunar event hasn’t happened for 68 years and it’s been blamed for everything from earthquakes to political catastrophes.
We could see space phenomenon tonight
A PHENOMENAL space event is headed for earth and could erupt and be seen by people in Australia tonight.
How dark matter killed off the dinosaurs
FROM extra dimensions to comet-slinging disks of dark matter. It’s no wonder Dr Lisa Randall has been dubbed “America’s superstar scientist”.
Has NASA created warp drive?
THE results of a NASA test into “warp drive” technology were leaked on the internet, before being quickly removed by the space agency.
Building a Buzz about going to Mars
RADIATION sickness. Brittle bones. Alzheimers. None of these will deter explorers in their quest to establish a foothold on Mars, says Apollo 11 hero Buzz Aldrin.
China launches most powerful rocket
CHINA launched its most powerful rocket ever as the country presses on with a program which has seen it become a major space power.
Scientists reveal ‘pillars of destruction’
SCIENTISTS have revealed images that they’ve dubbed the “Pillars of Destruction” in a region of the Carina Nebula, about 7,500 light years from Earth.
‘Impact had a devastating effect on Earth’
THE cosmic collision is thought to have occurred 4.5 billion years ago and was so dramatic that it formed the moon and left Earth with a two hour day.
NASA warning system’s first alarm
EARTH will be ‘buzzed’ today by a 25m chunk of rock and ice — the first test for NASA’s new ‘intruder alert’ system designed to detect approaching asteroids.
Rebooted search for ‘alien megastructure’
A MYSTERY around a strange dimming star is set to get a reboot thanks to a Russian billionaire and the most powerful telescopes in the world.
Astronomers report ‘flashing’ stars
TWO Canadian astronomers claim to have spotted ‘spectral modulation’ in more than 200 stars — evidence, they say, of alien civilisation. Others remain sceptical.
Saturn mysteriously changes colour
A HUGE hexagon on the northern pole of Saturn has changed colour, NASA says. But why did it happen?
How billionaire will colonise Mars
SPACEX founder and inventor Elon Musk has detailed his incredible vision for establishing a self-sufficient colony on Mars.
European probe exploded on Mars
THE European Space Agency says an experimental Mars probe may have exploded when it hit the surface of the Red Planet earlier this week.
Hunt for Planet Nine heats up
ASTRONOMERS have long been baffled by a quirk in the solar system and they believe a mysterious unseen planet is responsible.
Anxious wait for Mars probe touchdown
EUROPE’S experimental Schiaparelli probe has entered the atmosphere around Mars, with scientists awaiting confirmation that it touched down safely.
Europe hours away from Mars landing
A CRUCIAL mission to sniff out life on Mars is due to touch down on the Red Planet tonight. And a lot is riding on the descent.
Life-seeking Mars lander en route
THE ExoMars lander has begun its approach to the surface of Mars where it will look for signs of life. But already the journey has been rough.
UFO expert’s chilling final text
A UFO expert sent his mum a text telling her to “investigate” if something happened to him. Days later, he was found dead.
Universe ‘10 times’ bigger than thought
ASTRONOMERS have created a 3D model of the universe, and it looks nothing like what they expected.
Consortium announces first ‘space nation’
A GROUP of scientists and entrepreneurs has unveiled a plan to create the “first nation in space” which promises to change the global order.
Obama sets sights on Mars by 2030
PRESIDENT Barack Obama has renewed a push for the US to put humans on Mars by 2030 but said the government can’t do it alone.
Obama vows to send people to Mars
US President Barack Obama said the United States will partner with private industry to send people to Mars by the 2030s.
‘Preposterous but technically legitimate’
A DOCTOR from the UK claims he owns land on Mars, and it’s not as out of this world as you might think.
No one knows why this star is dimming
A STRANGE star in our galaxy has officially become even more mysterious, with astronomers struggling to explain why it keeps dimming.
Why we could be headed for an Ice Age
THE Sun has ‘gone blank’ for the fourth time this year, and it could herald the arrival of an Ice Age — it has been claimed.
Sabotage conspiracy in SpaceX failure
A CURIOUS incident involving a heated rival has introduced the idea of sabotage in a SpaceX investigation over an exploding rocket.
Comet crash ‘mission complete’
THE Rosetta spacecraft has crashed into Comet 67P, ending a 12-year mission and providing unique close ups of the surface.
‘Aliens have been here forever’
THE idea of aliens having already visited Earth is “impossible” for many. That’s why these alleged abductees stick together.
Inside Elon Musk’s big Mars plan
THE temperatures are so extreme and the atmosphere so thin you can’t venture outside without a protective suit. Welcome to the Mars colony.
Flares could play havoc with your Tinder
EARTH is about to be bombarded by a solar storm which could cause mayhem — disrupting technology including mobile phones and satellite TV.
Space probe set to crash onto comet
SCIENTISTS began saying their final farewells to the Rosetta space probe just hours before it crash lands on a comet.
Australia set to rejoin space race
AN Australian team could be set to revolutionise interplanetary travel after their new engine prototype got fast-tracked to be tested on the International Space Station.
Suicide mission: ‘Are you prepared to die?’
THE founder of SpaceX Elon Musk has finally unveiled his plan to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars — but it won’t be easy.
QLD rocked by ‘flash of light’ and ‘tremor’
QUEENSLANDERS have been left scratching their heads after the night sky was split by a bright light, accompanied by a loud noise and tremors.
Incredible discovery on Jupiter’s moon
ASTRONOMERS have made a startling observation on Jupiter’s moon Europa, one that could boost the chance of finding other life in our solar system.
China turns on massive ‘Eye of Heaven’
CHINA has been quietly building the world’s biggest radio telescope to search for alien life in space. Now it’s finally been turned on.
‘Find aliens before they find us’
STEPHEN Hawking has warned that we must seek out intelligent life and is bringing together entrepreneurs to spend $130 million so we’re not wiped out first.
Satellite cyber warfare coming, warns report
THE new frontier of cyber warfare will likely take place in outer space and will have massive consequences, a new report warns.
NASA: ‘surprising activity’ on Europa
NASA has found ‘evidence of surprising activity’ on Jupiter’s moon Europa — a place the space agency believes is the best place to look for life.
Earth-bound space station ‘out of control’
CHINA has lost control of its giant space station, raising fears it could cause devastation when it crashes on Earth.
US secret ‘making us a target’
MOST of us know very little about this secret military facility in Central Australia. Instead of protecting us, it “makes us a target”.
Inspirational thing about Mars colony
THE man overseeing NASA’s effort to put a human settlement on Mars spoke to news.com.au about what’s gone into the huge project.
China launches second space station
CHINA has launched its second space station in a sign of the growing sophistication of its military-backed program that intends to send a mission to Mars.
Dramatic end to expensive space mission
THE 12-year Rosetta spacecraft is the world’s most expensive space mission. But it will come to a dramatic end this month.
Incredible map of a billion stars unveiled
THE most precise 3D map of the galaxy ever created has been unveiled, with the Gaia space probe plotting more than a billion stars in the Milky Way.
Elon Musk’s blunt admission
THE CEO of SpaceX has called last week’s rocket explosion the ‘most difficult and complex’ problem in the company’s history.
Giant asteroid hurtles towards Earth
A MASSIVE two kilometre-wide asteroid has made a dramatic ‘near Earth pass’, coming within 15 million kilometres – a virtual whisker in space terms.
‘The search is over!’ Lost spacecraft found
SCIENTISTS thought it was lost forever, but a miraculous sighting has recovered a spacecraft tucked into the crack of a comet hurtling through space.
‘The ultimate is to find new life’
A 300KG rover could pull off “one of the most important discoveries ever made” and find Martian life on Mars.
We found another ‘Dyson sphere’
AS IF the the first discovery wasn’t confusing enough, we now appear to have two stars that are masked by “alien megastructures”.
‘Unlike anything in solar system’
NASA released a batch of close-up pictures taken by the Juno spacecraft last week when it flew incredibly close to Jupiter.
Conspiracy in ‘British Roswell’ UFO case
IN 1980, police officers reported seeing a strange flying object and flashing lights. Now there are calls for Britain’s ‘Roswell’ case to be reopened.
Dramatic explosion at SpaceX launch pad
DRAMATIC footage of the SpaceX rocket explosion in Florida has surfaced, showing the destruction of Facebook’s $US200 million satellite.
No, that ain’t an alien signal
A RUSSIAN radio telescope sparked a frenzy earlier this week, with reports it had received a ‘signal’ from outer space. But alien hunters SETI now say it’s a case of mistaken identity.
The Fermi paradox strikes again
DESPITE excited speculation, it turns out the unusual radio signal detected from an interesting star system wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.
Young galaxies ‘brighter’ than we thought
MEASURING the pulse of 70,000 galaxies has revealed many were alive and kicking — and even dancing — as little as three billion years after the Big Bang.
An asteroid just came really close
AN asteroid missed the Earth by less than a quarter of the distance to the moon on Sunday just hours after astronomers discovered it.
Do secret space signals point to alien life?
RADIO signals detected from deep space and kept secret by Russia are now being investigated by international scientists.
Scientists freed from ‘Martian’ dome
SCIENTISTS who lived inside a dome in Hawaii for an entire year say the experience shows a human mission to Mars could succeed.
Probe to dive into Jupiter’s atmosphere
IN WHAT is largely a voyage into the unknown, the Juno spacecraft will get as close as we’ve ever gone to Jupiter Sunday night.
China has its sights set of Mars
CHINA has unveiled a spacecraft it plans to send to Mars in a mission the country says faces unprecedented challenges.
‘Second Earth’ discovered in deep space
ASTRONOMERS have discovered a planet orbiting our closest star just four light years away — and it has the potential for alien life.
Mars simulation coming to an end
SIX scientists are close to wrapping up a year of near isolation in a Mars simulation on a Hawaii mountain.
Space station gets new parking
WATCH as two astronauts embark on a special space walk to install a new parking spot for private space taxis at the International Space Station.
Asteroid didn’t kill dinosaurs
IT’S A widely accepted theory that an asteroid caused the extinction of dinosaurs. But, now it appears this isn’t the case.
Mars as you’ve never seen it before
STUNNING new pictures have been released by NASA showing huge colourful formations on the so-called Red Planet.
Tiny robots to map the universe
A NEW project will aim to use an army of tiny robots to map and study the expansion history of the universe.
China takes quantum leap in space race
ON TUESDAY morning China carried out what could prove to be a defining moment in the country’s global ascendancy.
Black hole test a ‘triumph’ for Hawking
STEPHEN Hawking may have got one of science’s biggest mysteries right. It turns out black holes may not be so black after all.
‘We could reach it in our lifetime’
ASTRONOMERS have discovered what they believe to be the closest habitable planet to Earth and claim we could explore it within the next two decades.
Object in weird orbit beyond Neptune
ASTRONOMERS are confused by the recent discovery of a mystery object orbiting around the sun in an opposite direction to the rest of the planets.
Venus was once habitable: NASA
IN RESEARCH that impacts our search for alien life, NASA believes Venus once looked a lot like Earth.
Scans reveal grand canyons of Titan
SATURN’s frigid moon Titan just got more alien. It’s not just a giant iceblock. New photos reveal it’s covered with grand canyons, filled with a glistening liquid.
The centre of our galaxy has large void
USING a telescope in South Africa, astronomers discovered the centre of the Milky Way has an enormous void that surprisingly lacks young stars
‘Alien megastructure’ star gets weirder
A MYSTERIOUSLY pulsing star within our galaxy keeps exhibiting strange behaviour that can’t be explained by any known phenomena.
The galaxy’s Top 20 places to live
A LIST of ‘most Earth-like’ planets has been singled out for further study. Is one of them where we’ll find extraterrestrial life?
North Korea plans moon landing
NORTH Korea has revealed it is building a space program which it believes will see it walk on the moon within a decade.
Space tour license close to blast off
COMMERCIAL space tourism just got one step closer with the US federal aviation body granting Virgin Galactic its space license.
Asteroid ‘on course to pulverise Earth’
NASA will soon launch a probe to study an asteroid that crosses Earth’s orbit every six years and could pulverise the planet.
The unforeseen cost of Apollo missions
NEW research with major implications for space travel studied the Apollo astronauts and points to the potentially fatal consequences of deep space expeditions.
China launches new global space race
CHINA is about to launch a groundbreaking mission into space, sparking a new technology race with huge implications for us back on Earth.
Astronauts trained for war in space
AMERICA is bracing itself for war in space and has begun training U.S. air force personnel for science fiction-style cosmic conflicts, it has been revealed.
Proof Einstein’s ‘biggest blunder’ correct
EINSTEIN thought he’d made a mistake about the universe, but incredible new research into dark matter proves he was actually right.
Dark mass growing on the sun
NASA is monitoring an enormous dark region spreading across the surface of the sun, discovered by one of its spacecrafts.
Could this device detect alien life?
NASA scientists are about to send a handheld DNA sequencer into space — and they have big hopes for what it could find.
Dying stars may have given birth to humanity
BRILLIANT blasts of blue light. Tidal waves of cosmic radiation. But instead of destroying life on Earth, the death of several nearby stars may have supercharged the human race.
Mysterious ‘ice planet’ spotted
DUBBED RR245, the icy world is currently about nine billion kilometres from the Sun on the outer reaches of our solar system.
Juno spacecraft sends first images
THE NASA spacecraft Juno - out on a 20-month mission - has sent back the first pictures since arriving at Jupiter.
Why 2016 will have an extra second
A second is just a moment in real time, but adding it to the official clock can play havoc with computer networks.
#Manhattanhenge shuts down NYC
A RARE solar phenomenon has made an appearance in New York City, with thousands stopping traffic to snap that perfect picture.
China’s space station ‘out of control’
CHINA has lost contact with its space station amid concerns its space hardware could hurtle back towards Earth in an uncontrolled fireball.
New planet’s 24-hour daylight
IMAGINE a planet with triple sunrises and sunsets every day for part of the year, and non-stop daylight at other times.
Crazy slingshot move that got us to Jupiter
THE Juno mission to Jupiter used a “sling shot” technique featured in Hollywood blockbusters. But the move has origins further back than that.
‘Juno, welcome to Jupiter’
IT WAS the moment of truth for NASA scientists — and as the world watched, it didn’t disappoint.
Beyond help: 35 minutes in the vortex
AFTER five years of hard work it all comes down to these 35 minutes for the Juno spacecraft. If anything goes wrong, there is nothing anyone can do.
