New Scientist Space - Space Headlines

Astronauts on NASA's future Ares I rocket should get a smooth ride to space thanks to a two-tiered system of shock-absorbing springs

If you took a stab at renaming NASA's gamma-ray telescope earlier this year, now's your chance to see whether the agency took your suggestion seriously. After asking the public to suggest a new name for GLAST, NASA is set to...

Dense, compact galaxies in the early universe more than doubled their size in a short time – astronomers are struggling to explain how

The vents from which icy geysers erupt on Enceladus are revealed in new images – the vents' position changes over time

As the US election heats up, aspiring presidential candidates have turned their attention to Florida, where the shuttles are launched, and are pressing to clarify their positions on space exploration.Democratic hopeful Barack Obama released a seven-page position statement (pdf) on...

Astronomers had theorised that a distant shell of comets called the Oort cloud had an inner region – now they have found its first native son

The streams were likely ripped from dwarf galaxies that were gobbled up by our Milky Way long ago

Officials say NASA will stick with the Ares I design despite rumours that it is considering an alternative

I love big physics. What captivates me is the contrasting scales: to explore the quantum realm - to really get to the bottom of what made the universe tick shortly after the big bang - you need gargantuan machines and...

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has entered a new phase, probing to greater distances to study the universe's expansion history

What is a planet? As Pluto's lost status hangs in the balance, astronomers agree that we need a new way of looking at the solar system

The Phoenix lander's atomic force microscope took the image, shown at a higher magnification than anything ever seen from another planet

The latest international news, of course, is that the Russians are throwing their weight around in Georgia and most everyone else, including the US, doesn't approve. This might all quiet down and blow over; that's happened before. Or it might...

After operating for several months in constant darkness, the PLATO observatory has abruptly lost power – it may revive when the Sun returns

Images taken during the probe's recent flyby of Enceladus may contain clues about the moon's geysers, which spew from stripe-like fractures

When entangled quantum particles signal one another, the signals move at least 10,000 times faster than light

The Mars Phoenix Lander's discovery of the chemical perchlorate has mixed implications for the possibility of life on the planet (full text available to subscribers)

A third soil sample is being analysed by an onboard instrument called TEGA; meanwhile, the lander has dug its deepest trench yet

Last week, the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) announced it has awarded $2.7 million in grants to 33 researchers to study basic questions in physics and cosmology.Among the grant winners was surfer/theoretical physicist A. Garrett Lisi (pictured), who made the news...

NASA will incorporate springs into its future Ares I rocket to prevent potentially deadly vibrations from shaking its astronaut crew