Nasa’s new rover is intended to store rock samples it plucks from the Martian surface. But what happens after that? Richard Hollingham finds out.

Using the most powerful telescope ever sent to Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a view of the Curiosity rover this month amid rocky mountainside terrain.

There’s no shortage of things to be mad about in late capitalism. Pretty high on the list, though, is the Eat, Pray, Love brand of pseudoscience promoted by Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop.

If you look up Uranus and Neptune in an encyclopedia, there's a good chance the pictures you see will be about 30 years old. In the late 1970s, the twin Voyager spacecraft launched on a grand tour of the solar system, taking advantage of a rare planetary alignment that only happens every 175 years. Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in January 1986, and Neptune in August 1989. The probe was traveling too fast, and lacked the fuel, to slow down and enter orbit.

Prof Stephen Hawking has called for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020. They should also aim to build a lunar base in 30 years' time and send people to Mars by 2025. Prof Hawking said that the goal would re-ignite the space programme, forge new alliances and give humanity a sense of purpose.

The Kepler space telescope's latest and most complete planet catalog adds 219 new candidates, including one that could be a close cousin to Earth.

It's official - NASA's Asteroid Redirect mission has entered its closing down phase, which means we can't expect to see a giant boulder orbiting our Moon any time soon. Bummer. Asteroid Redirect was started in 2015 with the goal to create the first-ever mission combining robot and human efforts. The plan was to send a robotic crew to a near-Earth asteroid, grab a huge rock from it, and redirect it in a stable orbit around the Moon.

And there are indications that groundwater persisted for far longer. By John Timmer.

NASA has found diverse minerals in rocks examined by the Curiosity rover on lower Mount Sharp, Mars. These suggest that wet environmental conditions there changed over time.

You'd think NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has seen everything there is to see on the Martian surface in the 11 years it's orbited our nearest neighbour, but a snapshot taken over the planet's South Pole has revealed something we can't...

The United States will revive the long-dormant National Space Council, a group meant to coordinate space policy among government agencies and departments. Vice-president Mike Pence, who will chair the council, announced its reinstatement on 7 June at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Curiosity has been studying Mars on its own for a year. By Sean O’Kane.

Excitement greets pictures of giant, chaotic weather systems plus new measurements that will help build unprecedented map of planet’s interior

A mission to the icy moon of Jupiter Europa will be coming within the decade.

Dr. Dominic D’Agostino was chosen based on his research in the USF Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory exploring how extreme environments affect the human body, according to USF.

Indian teenager Rifath Sharook has designed the “world’s lightest satellite” using a 3D printed carbon fiber reinforced polymer. The satellite, which weighs just 64 grams, is expected to launch on a sounding rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island facility, Virginia in June. Sharook has named the 4 cm device the ‘Kalam Sat’ in reference to former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

The devices, called "spider flyer-walker" suits, would have eight arms and allow astronauts to hop, crawl, or walk. When the first astronauts reach Mars in the 2030s, they'll never set foot on the planet's surface. Instead, NASA wants its plucky human crew to orbit the desert world for about a year, then return home. But that doesn't mean astronauts couldn't explore Phobos or Deimos — two tiny and intriguing moons of Mars.

A previously unobserved phenomenon has roiled the interior of one of Greenland’s glaciers. By Brian Kahn.

Getting sick when you’re far from home is a drag. You’d give anything to crawl into your own soft bed and sleep, but you’re stuck in a cookie-cutter hotel room feeling like a sick fish out of water. Well, it could be worse. You could be an astronaut on the way to Mars -- a really long way from mom’s chicken soup.  

High concentrations of silica point to the existence of groundwater long after lakes evaporated. This finding extends the potential window for life on the...

There might be alien life in our own solar system, Nasa has announced. All of the necessary things to support life have been found on one of the moons that orbits Saturn. Enceladus has chemicals that when found on Earth tend to indicate life, suggesting that there might be living things might be under its icy shell.

A review of NASA research highlights the risk that prolonged social isolation poses to long-distance space missions, as well as other dangers like radiation. (Jan. 11, 2017)

NASA scientists have released new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest-yet views of the patterns of human settlements across our planet

Nearly 15 years after her first space launch, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has now spent more time off-planet than any other American, at more than 534 days. Whitson, 57, is a biochemist who has twice commanded the International Space Station. "It is one of those rides that you hope never ends," Whitson tweeted last night. "I am so grateful for all those who helped me on each of my missions!"

NASA is usually so busy showing off all the awesome stuff it finds out in space that it’s easy to lose track of the cool projects it’s working on here on Earth, but the new “space fabric” designed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is just too cool to overlook. Like some kind of futuristic chainmail, it not only looks ridiculously awesome, it’s also a potential solution for protecting space-faring astronauts from debris like meteorites. The design of the fabric, which was led by JPL engineer Raul Polit Casillas, is such that it’s both flexible

NASA is interested in the Moon again. This week, the space agency issued a new "request for information" to the aerospace industry for cargo transportation to the lunar surface. This new opportunity appears to represent NASA's increasing willingness to reconsider the Moon as a destination for human spaceflight. In the request, offered jointly by the agency's science, human spaceflight, and technology directorates, NASA seeks to partner with the commercial sector to deliver scientific payloads to the Moon.

It looks like the futuristic space truck from Ridley Scott’s film Prometheus but this is Nasa’s visionary new Mars rover which could one day provide transport for manned missions to the Red Planet.

Agency narrows possible targets for the first-ever sample return from the red planet.

"Burn, baby! BURN!"

President Trump has indicated that he wants to make a splash in space. During his transition, he spoke with historian Douglas Brinkley about John F. Kennedy's famous 1961 vow to go to the moon before the decade was out. Now Trump and his aides may do something very similar: demand that NASA send astronauts to orbit the moon before the end of Trump's first term — a move that one Trump adviser said would be a clear signal to the Chinese that the U.S. intends to retain dominance in space.

Scientists could discover whether life exists outside of planet Earth within the next 20 years, answering one of the most “fundamental questions” facing humanity, a senior Nasa official has said.  Dr Kevin Hand is one of the leading officials involved in the US space agency’s mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter which has a vast ocean beneath a crust of ice that could potentially harbour extra-terrestrial life.

A SpaceX Falcon rocket blasts off from a historic NASA launch pad at the Kennedy Space Centre.

NASA will announce a new discovery involving planets orbiting stars other than the sun at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) on Wednesday, Feb. 22.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

NASA could send astronauts around the moon sooner than expected, if the Trump administration has its way. But some argue the change in plans could be costly.