Space

One Small Step For Man, One Giant Lunar Park For The U.S.?

6:50pm July 20, 2013

by NPR Staff

Two members of Congress want to preserve artifacts from American lunar missions with a national park on the moon, but there are some international hurdles to jump. Still, Space Policy Institute director Dr. Scott Pace says the bill raises intriguing questions about what the future of human-space interaction will look like.

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This artist's illustration shows Pluto and one of its moons, Charon. A global consortium of astronomers sets the rules for naming things like asteroids and moons throughout the solar system.

Science

Why You Can't Name New Moons And Planets Anything You Want

12:38pm July 09, 2013

by Geoff Brumfiel

Pluto's two newest moons received their official names this week, and the name that led in the popular vote was Spock's home planet, Vulcan. But it was rejected by the international team of astronomers who must approve every title bestowed upon the universe.

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Remembering Astronaut Sally Ride's Historic Journey

1:55pm June 18, 2013

Thirty years ago Tuesday, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space. She was aboard the shuttle Challenger. Less than three years later, it would explode on takeoff, killing seven crew members.

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Science

Comet Shines Light on Sun Dynamics

1:33pm June 07, 2013

In 2011, Comet Lovejoy traveled through the sun's corona and lived to tell the tale. But its tail was the most telling. Reporting in the journal Science, Cooper Downs, an astrophysicist at Predictive Science Inc., says that the wiggly path of the comet's tail helps explain the sun's magnetic field.

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Justin Bieber Aims For Outer Space

7:22am June 07, 2013

Singer Justin Bieber is the latest celebrity to score a booking on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, destined for its first suborbital test flight sometime this year. He had to put down $250,000.

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Bright charged particles spin along magnetic field lines above the surface of the sun in the image captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Solar flares like this one shoot high energy protons and radiation into the solar system.

Headed To Mars? Watch Out For Cosmic Rays

8:42am May 31, 2013

by Adam Cole

The dose of radiation an astronaut would experience on a trip to Mars is higher than the annual limit set for workers at nuclear power plants. But Mars enthusiasts say the radiation threat isn't high enough to cancel the trip.

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Resetting the Theory of Time

11:23am May 17, 2013

Generations of physicists have claimed that time is an illusion. But not all agree. In his book Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe, theoretical physicist Lee Smolin argues that time exists--and he says time is key to understanding the evolution of the universe.

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This map, from the United States Geological Survey, shows the age of bedrock in different regions of North America. Scientists found ancient water in bedrock north of Lake Superior. This region, colored red, was formed more than 2.5 billion years ago.

Water Trapped For 1.5 Billion Years Could Hold Ancient Life

9:25am May 16, 2013

by Adam Cole

Scientists have discovered water that was sealed in Canadian bedrock for nearly half of Earth's history. It may contain the descendants of ancient microbes. The discovery could give scientists new insights into early life on Earth and inform the search for life on other planets.

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Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity on July 20, 1969.

Buzz Aldrin's Case For A 'Mission To Mars'

2:40pm May 10, 2013

In Mission To Mars, astronaut Buzz Aldrin lays out his plans for getting Americans on Mars by 2035.

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Science

Exploring An Ever-Expanding Universe

1:23pm May 10, 2013

Saul Perlmutter shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate. Perlmutter explains how supernovae and other astronomical artifacts are used to measure the expansion rate, and explains what physicists are learning about "dark energy" — the mysterious entity thought to be driving the acceleration.

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