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currently the only operational manmade object on the surface of Mars… or any other planet besides Earth, for that matter

until the arrival of Mars Science Laboratory at Gale Crater this August.

presented in false color to emphasize differences in materials such as dark dunes on the crater floor.

Opportunity took most of the component images on March 9, 2012, while the solar-powered rover was spending several weeks at one location to preserve energy during the Martian winter

Venus will take six hours to march across the star’s face, appearing as an inky black dot in silhouette against the looming solar disk

Because the planet’s orbit is slightly off-kilter, its solar transits come in pairs spaced eight years apart, with more than 100 years between pairs.

Paris Observatory, who will join Venus Express team members in Svalbard, Norway to observe the transit against the midnight sun.

Based on the Galileo probe data acquired during its exploration of the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003

Europa possesses a deep, global ocean of liquid water beneath a layer of surface ice

The subsurface ocean plus ice layer could range from 80 to 170 kilometers in average dept

The President just called to say congrats. Caller ID was blocked, so at first I thought it was a telemarketer :)

Station Crew Opens Dragon's Hatch

Transits occur in truly weird combinations, either in a June or a December. When one happens, another one happens in the same month eight years later.

EnlargeDescription of the June 5-6 transit of Venus across

Argentine experts have discovered the near-complete remains of a new species of Jurassic-era dinosaur that stood on its rear legs and had tiny arms, according to a leading paleontologist.

The creature looks a bit like a scaled-down Tyrannosaurus rex, but with even smaller arms.

this six-meter (20-foot) long creature creature "has completely reduced arms and tiny claws, which implies that it used only its very sharp teeth to feed itself,"

NASA and the X Prize Foundation of Playa Vista, Calif., announced Thursday the Google Lunar X Prize is recognizing guidelines established by NASA to protect lunar historic sites and preserve ongoing and future science on the moon. The foundation will take the guidelines into account as it judges mobility plans submitted by 26 teams vying to be the first privately-funded entity to visit the moon.

With cameras set up in Sumatra looking for medium- and small-sized wild cats, such as leopards, a research group involving the University of Delaware's Kyle McCarthy, found images of something else entirely -- a rabbit. Not just any ordinary rabbit, but a Sumatran striped rabbit, one of the world's rarest species and one that had been captured on film only three times before.

while his group plans on continuing their study of small cats, they are now also focusing on the rare rabbit species

This is the most data that anybody has compiled on these rabbits ever

if all of the water on or near the surface of the Earth were bunched up into a ball. The radius of this ball would be only about 700 kilometers

professor of business administration at the University of Illinois

moderate level of noise not only enhances creative problem-solving but also leads to a greater adoption of innovative products in certain settings

explores how a moderate-level of ambient noise (about 70 decibels, equivalent to a passenger car traveling on a highway) enhances performance on creative tasks and increases the likelihood of consumers purchasing innovative products.

announced his team’s development of modular devices that could be used to gather solar energy in orbit, working atop an experimental “space web” structure developed by graduate students at the university’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

“By using either microwaves or lasers we would be able to beam the energy back down to earth, directly to specific areas. This would provide a reliable, quality source of energy and would remove the need for storing energy coming from renewable sources on ground as it would provide a constant delivery of solar energy.”

Israeli scientists have cultivated a cannabis plant that doesn't get people stoned in a development that may help those smoking marijuana for medical purposes

Europe is still has a multitude of unfamiliar species.

researchers have found that new species are being discovered at a record rate – four times faster than they were over two centuries ago.

The Royal Observatory Greenwich is giving free presentations of "Measuring the Universe: from the Transit of Venus to the Edge of the Cosmos" from now until September 1.

Using silk strands pulled from cocoons and gold wires thinner than a spider's web, researchers at Princeton University have created a removable tattoo that adheres to dental enamel and could eventually monitor a patient's health with unprecedented sensitivity

The team of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, with twin probes named Ebb and Flow, is now preparing for extended science operations starting Aug. 30 and continuing through Dec. 3, 2012.

March 8, the spacecraft have operated around the clock for 89 days.

collected data covering the entire surface three times

Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep water off a western Greek island, challenging the conventional theory that ancient shipmasters stuck to coastal routes rather than risking the open sea, an official said Tuesday.

They lay between 1.2 and 1.4 kilometers (0.7-0.9 miles) deep in the sea between Corfu and Italy.

among the deepest known ancient wrecks in the Mediterranean, apart from remains found in 1999 of an older vessel some 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) deep off Cyprus.

Solar power plants in Germany have set a new record. “Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity,"

plants peaked at 22 gigawatts of output for a few hours over the weekend, on Friday and Saturday

they yielded almost half the country's energy mid-day electricity needs