14:57 19 October 2009  | 7 comments

For the first time a robot labourer has dug enough simulated lunar soil to win NASA's annual prize

THIS WEEK:  08:00 19 October 2009  | 53 comments

Light pollution and artificial chemicals in the atmosphere could reveal the existence of alien life on distant planets

17:44 17 October 2009  | 43 comments

A spacecraft trailing behind NASA's LCROSS impactor did manage to snap photos of a faint plume of ejected material – researchers are searching the data for signs of water

COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:  14:37 16 October 2009  | 72 comments

No law governs the ownership of lunar territory. Will we see the same scramble for territory that carved up Antarctica, asks William Cullerne Brown

18:55 15 October 2009  | 46 comments

Weeks before NASA's LCROSS mission hit the moon on Friday, some scientists predicted the impact might not be visible, and others questioned the mission's logic

THIS WEEK:  18:00 14 October 2009  | 49 comments

Something disrupted the rings 25 years ago, creating a pattern like the grooves on a vinyl record – and the mystery is only getting deeper

17:13 14 October 2009  | 102 comments

An electromagnetic black hole has been built in a lab – and may one day be adapted to generate limitless solar energy even on a cloudy day

22:29 13 October 2009  | 36 comments

Lasers pointed at the sky help focus telescopes, but the air force is concerned they could blind Earth-observing satellites

19:53 12 October 2009  | 28 comments

Two teams have found evidence of water ice on the asteroid 24 Themis – the find suggests asteroids could have delivered some water to the early Earth

16:46 12 October 2009  | 7 comments

Flight tests confirm that Virgin's launch craft WhiteKnightTwo could carry satellites as well as tourists

10:29 12 October 2009  | 4 comments

NASA's LCROSS mission is the latest in a series of attempts to divine water on the moon – some have hinted that our nearest neighbour may be something of a watery oasis, while others suggest that view is just a mirage

13:42 09 October 2009  | 120 comments

A NASA spacecraft has created a pair of craters on the lunar surface – but so far no plume of ejected material has been seen

THIS WEEK:  13:34 09 October 2009  | 13 comments

A plasma soup that dominated the early universe could create flashes brief enough to take snapshots of the inside of atomic nuclei

23:13 08 October 2009  | 60 comments

A proposal to send astronauts to visit asteroids and orbit Mars gets top marks in preliminary ratings by the White House panel reviewing NASA's future

13:11 08 October 2009  | 30 comments

The chance that the 250-metre-wide asteroid Apophis may hit Earth has been lowered again, but a close approach is now predicted in 2068

13:26 07 October 2009  | 67 comments

A gigantic gun could launch cargo into space more cheaply than conventional rockets

22:20 06 October 2009  | 15 comments

A dusty ring has been found around Saturn that dwarfs all others discovered to date – its particles are likely the detritus of collisions involving the moon Phoebe

FEATURE:  11:17 06 October 2009  | 8 comments

The solar wind has died to a ghost of a breeze, so what's stirring up our satellites? A global study suggests it could be Earth's own atmosphere

21:54 05 October 2009  | 92 comments

For the first time, a plasma engine that could be used to boost the space station's orbit has been fired at full power

19:56 05 October 2009  | 1 comment

On Wednesday, amateur astronomers will set up more than 20 telescopes to observe the skies from the White House lawn