Articles with the keyword: 
Exoplanets examined at European Week of Astronomy and Space Science
Darkfrog submitted, created time 10 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)
And the third exoplanet was just right.
...for maintaining liquid water.
Our ability to find exoplanets--planets outside our own solar system--has finally stretched down to planets small enough and far enough from their own suns for astronomers to point out a little rock here and there that could potentially maintain water in a liquid state. We might not be ready to fire up the terraformers and move in just yet--even the smallest of these planets has a radius about 1.7 times Earth's--but there's suddenly a selection of potential exopads to choose from 
Methane-producing mineral discovered on Mars
sea-maid submitted, created time 11 months 2 weeks (www.nature.com)
Surprises keep coming from Nili Fossae, a long, deep scar in the surface of Mars. In December last year, scientists reported evidence there for carbonates—minerals that typically form in the presence of water. Then, in January, reports came that there was a large plume of methane in the area. On Earth the gas is made mostly by animals as a by-product—although it can also be produced naturally in the absence of life.
NASA and the ESA choose Europa for the next big orbiter mission
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 3 weeks (www.nature.com)
Like family members squabbling over where to spend their precious vacation days, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and the ESA (European Space Agency) have dusted off their flip-flops and sunglasses and settled on a destination for their next joint space exploration mission. With props to Kubrick and Clarke, we're going to Europa.
For the Europa Jupiter Space Mission, each agency will build one orbiter. The idea is that the orbiters will be launched in 2020 and arrive at Jupiter's moons by 2026
Design that copies the movements of desert creatures could have applications in sand and space
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 1 month (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
For robots, sand can be a problem. Even vehicles specifically designed to work on sand, such as dune bugs and jeeps, can run into trouble when the grains simply skitter away, leaving a hole beneath the wheel. Moving more slowly can avoid the mireup, but it also means the vehicle never gets anywhere.
A team out of the Georgia Institute of Technology has designed a robot, SandBot, that copies one aspect of the movements of desert creatures
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 2 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
Although it seems massive to us, our sun is a mere pygmy among its brethren. Stars that could envelop Earth if placed in the middle of our solar system freckle the night sky. How did they get so big? A new study suggests that these behemoths are much freer to eat and grow than previously thought. They also occasionally engage in cannibalism--swallowing their smaller siblings whole. The work addresses forty years of astrophysical questions and is "an important contribution to the field," says astrophysicist Henrik Beuther of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Heidelberg, Germany
NASA Report Details Columbia Disaster
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 2 months (www.time.com)
Seat restraints, pressure suits and helmets of the doomed crew of the space shuttle Columbia didn't work well, leading to "lethal trauma" as the out-of-control ship lost pressure and broke apart, killing all seven astronauts, a new NASA report says. At least one crew member was alive and pushing buttons for half a minute after a first loud alarm sounded, as he futilely tried to right Columbia during that disastrous day Feb. 1, 2003.
Mystery stone circles may point to water on Mars
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 2 months (www.newscientist.com)
Using cameras on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Matt Balme of the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, and his colleagues mapped the Elysium Planitia, a region near the equator. They saw rings up to twenty-three meters across made up of stones sorted by size into concentric bands.
New window on the high-energy universe
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (www.sciencenews.org)
New telescope finds that the high-energy share of gamma-ray bursts arrive at Earth significantly later than the low-energy portion.
Did lack of comet impacts help life evolve?
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (www.newscientist.com)
IT SEEMS we got off lightly in the cosmic lottery. Deadly comet impacts may be much rarer in our solar system than in others nearby.
First detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (www.sciencenews.org)
Moving one step closer to finding the fingerprints of life in a habitable planet beyond the solar system, astronomers have for the first time detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits a star other than the sun.
The extrasolar planet and its star lie about sixty-three light-years from Earth. A gaseous body slightly bigger than Jupiter, the orb circles its parent star at a proximity that renders it far too hot to support life
Microbes drove Earth's mineral evolution
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 4 months (www.nature.com)
A comprehensive history of Earth's mineral wealth concludes that without life, many raw materials wouldn't exist. In the early interstellar medium, scientists say, there were about twelve minerals. The planetary formation process upped this to around sixty. The addition of water (itself a mineral) allows for more different kinds of reactions and the mineral count jumps into the hundreds
Astronautics: The Hubble Space Telescope Will Not Be Repaired Until Next Year
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.nytimes.com)
The Hubble Space Telescope seems to be its own worst enemy. The space shuttle Atlantis had been scheduled to tak en eleven-day trip to the Hubble to allow astronauts to replace old parts and make repairs, but the mission will have to be delayed until 2009--because the Hubble is broken.
NASA scientists have decided to permit the Hubble to switch to its backup Hubble Control Unit/Science Data Formatter and take the risk of this one breaking too, but it will allow the Hubble to resume its observations
Water's role in Martian chemistry becoming clearer
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.sciencenews.org)
As its mission nears its end, the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander finds strong evidence for minerals similar to those formed on Earth by liquid water.
SpaceX 's Falcon 1 shows successful launch
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.nature.com)
Private rocket company SpaceX has been in some trouble lately. However, the successful test of its new Falcon 1, which reached low earth orbit after it was launched late this past Sunday.
The Falcon 1 can only lift one ton of cargo. To compete, SpaceX will have to built a rockets that can lift at least ten tons. Even so, this is a huge triumph. SpaceX estimates that each launch will cost $10 million, about one-fourth the cost of current systems. With the American shuttle program winding down, this is a timely development.
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.sciencenews.org)
The orbiting observatory has suddenly stopped transmitting data. NASA reports an unknown failure inside a data formatting unit as culprit.
NASA is debating whether to command Hubble to switch to a backup unit, which would require reconnecting all five scientific devices or to transport a new backup unit from Earth to the telescope. Considering that the current backup unit has been subject to eighteen years of crippling daily temperature changes, the earthbound backup may be the way to go.
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