Space
Discovery closing in for docking with space station
The space shuttle Discovery is moving closer to the International Space Station (ISS) as it prepares for a planned docking to the ISS at 5:12:46 P.M
Stories by John Matson
Space
Space station may have to dodge debris as shuttle nears
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) may have to maneuver the station to evade flying junk as the space shuttle Discovery closes in for docking.
The Sciences
Happy 3/14, also known as pi day
Hot on the heels of square root day, a loosely conceived mathematical celebration that fell on March 3 (3/3/09), comes today's pi day. The present "holiday" celebrates the yearly agreement between the calendar (3/14) and the first three digits of pi (3.14...), the ratio of circumference to diameter for a circle...
The Sciences
Fermilab Provides More Constraints on the Elusive Higgs Boson
The hunt for the long-sought-after particle continues in the U.S. as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe lies dormant
The Sciences
Benoit Mandelbrot and the wildness of financial markets
In a lecture at Columbia University this week, famed fractal pioneer Benoit Mandelbrot once again inveighed against traditional economic theories, returning at a time of financial malaise to many of the points he raised in a 1999 Scientific American feature...
Space
International Space Station crew seek refuge during debris scare
Astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) took refuge in a Soyuz escape capsule as a threatening piece of debris passed by without incident today, NASA announced.
Space
Space shuttle set to launch tonight; U.S. East Coasters may see it climbing
The much-postponed launch of space shuttle Discovery on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS) finally looks set to go. The shuttle is scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida tonight at 9:20 (Eastern Daylight Time), delivering the final pieces of the ISS's solar arrays and helping to boost the station's capacity from three to six crew members...
Space
Pluto fans, Illinois stands with you: State senate reinstates full planetary status
In 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) agreed on a controversial definition of the word "planet," which included the criterion that a planet must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit...
Space
Kepler spacecraft, hunter of habitable planets, set to go
Late tomorrow night, NASA's Kepler spacecraft will—conditions permitting—lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on its unprecedented mission to find habitable, Earth-like planets around distant stars...
Health
Can Biological "Passports" Root Out Doping in Sports?
A new approach to catching drug cheats and blood dopers is about to get its first test as the UCI tries to recycle its sullied reputation
Space
Astronomers spot two black holes in an orbital dance
Black holes, as frighteningly extreme as they may be, are relatively commonplace across the universe. Like most large galaxies, our own Milky Way packs a supermassive black hole at its core, a lurking monster some four million times as massive as the sun...
Space
Cassini spacecraft spots a new moonlet in Saturn's rings
Saturn's G ring, a faint band of material near the outer bounds of the planet's famed ring system, hosts a bright arc about 90,000 miles (150,000 kilometers) long.
The Sciences
Square root day, 3/3/09, is upon us
Math lovers and numerologists take note: Today, March 3, 2009, is square root day.
The unofficial holiday comes around but nine times a century, when the numbers of the calendar align so that the month and day are each equal to the square root of the year as expressed in two-digit form...
The Sciences
Can the science of biogeography find Osama bin Laden?
Osama bin Laden, the FBI's most wanted terrorist, has proved an extremely elusive quarry. Could biology and geography help crack the case—and net the man with a $25-million bounty on his head for plotting numerous terrorist strikes?...
More Mysterious Methane
Localized burps add intrigue to the question of Martian life
Space
Obama's budget toes the Bush line on manned space missions: Shuttles out, moon mission a go
Pres. Obama's budget proposal for fiscal year 2010 throws White House support behind two of the more controversial NASA plans of the Bush era: retiring the space shuttle in 2010 and returning humans to the moon by 2020...
Space
Are You Out There, ET? Searches for Habitable Planets Are About to Get a Boost
A Q&A with stellar and planetary scientist Alan Boss about the holy grail of extrasolar planet research--finding Earth-like planets
The Sciences
Florida professor accused of defrauding NASA
A University of Florida (UF) professor and his family are under investigation for allegedly falsifying information and funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars from contracts for NASA and other federal agencies into their personal accounts...
By Jove! Distribution of the Asteroid Belt Reveals Giant Planets' Orbital Migration
The solar system's giant outer planets appear to have sculpted the asteroid belt as they settled into their current orbits
Space
Record of exploding stars 1,000 years ago may be written in polar ice
Ice cores drilled from the poles have provided valuable historical climate records, as the composition of the ice and the air bubbles trapped therein offers a relatively pristine glimpse of ancient conditions...
