Russia to stage mock mission to Mars

The first day of April is always a traditional time for pranks and puns, and astronomers and scientists aren't above an April Fools' Day shenanigan or two. Hey, I gotta admit, as a freelance science journalist, ...

(AP) -- Pale but smiling, an international crew of researchers on Friday walked out of a set of windowless modules after a grueling 520-day simulation of a flight to Mars.

(Phys.org)—When humans eventually travel to the Red Planet, the voyage will be long and difficult. The simulated Mars500 mission showed that every detail must be planned, including diet and sleep. The findings ...

This week, NASA's Research And Technology Studies (RATS) team will convene at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) to begin their 15th mission. In the past, RATS missions have been conducted in remote desert locations ...

(Phys.org) -- Pop into Cornell's Autonomous Systems Lab in Rhodes Hall any given day, and a mechanical arthropod might be negotiating a steep ramp, or a Roomba-like rover could be cleaning up a cluttered ...

MBARI engineer Andy Hamilton looks out his office window in Moss Landing and points at the waves crashing on the beach below. “Pretty impressive, aren’t they? You’d think there’d be a way ...

A number of mice and eight gerbils sent into space in a Russian capsule destined to find out how well organisms can withstand extended flights perished during their journey, scientists said Sunday as the ...

(Phys.org) —A team of researchers from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space robotics company Honeybee Robotics, has successfully completed a first series of field ...

(Phys.org) —NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is driving to a new study area after a dramatic finish to 20 months on "Cape York" with examination of a rock intensely altered by water.

On 5:24 a.m. EDT on May 17, 2013, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space that can reach Earth ...

While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited Earth's moon for three days in December 1972, they drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles ...

For the past 8 years, NASA astronomers have been monitoring the Moon for signs of explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. "Lunar meteor showers" have turned out to be more common than anyone ...