Robotic Exploration of the Solar System

5 Future Robotic Expeditions and What They Could Reveal [Slide Show]

Some are already on their way and some are still in the works, but here is what we may see from unmanned exploration of space in the coming years

Opportunity rover finds possible meteorite on Mars

The indefatigable Opportunity rover, still motoring across the Red Planet five years into its mission, recently came across what may be a large meteorite sitting on the Martian surface.

A Mars Rovers Once-Over

We look at the state of the rovers currently on Mars, the big accidental discovery by the Spirit rover, and the next-generation device slated to join them in 2010, the Mars Science Laboratory Rover. Interviews with Cornell's Melissa Rice, the payload downlink lead for the rover cameras, and the Jet Propulsion Lab's Michelle Viotti, about the Mars Science Laboratory Rover. Also press conference clips featuring Cornell's Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science instruments on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, and Harvard's Andrew Knoll, a biologist with the Mars missions. Plus, we'll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Web sites mentioned on this episode include www.jpl.nasa.gov

Enceladus: Secrets of Saturn's Strangest Moon

Wrinkled landscapes and spouting jets on Saturn's sixth-largest moon hint at underground waters

NASA and ESA headed back to Jupiter's moons

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) today unveiled their joint plans for exploring the outer planets, choosing to head to Jupiter and four of its moons before further exploring the moons of Saturn.

Red (Planet) Alert: Massive Subsurface Glaciers Discovered on Mars

Surface-penetrating radar reveals features composed of ice, not rock

Moonstruck: Tagalong Probe to Blast Moon in Search for Water

The LCROSS spacecraft, launching next week, will impact the moon to see what flies up

Mars exploration rovers just keep going and going...

When NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers touched down on Mars, they were each tapped for three-month missions exploring the Red Planet. But five years later, both are still moving, providing a bright spot at a tumultuous time for the space agency.

Have Brain, Must Travel

Phoenix Gas Analyzer Confirms Water on Mars

Mission extended five weeks until late September

Sample-return mission pulls a building block of life from a comet

A NASA probe that ferried material from a comet to Earth appears to have brought back an amino acid from that encounter, bolstering a theory that life's precursors may have arrived on our planet from outer 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.

How do space probes navigate large distances with such accuracy and how do the mission controllers know when they've reached their target?

Space For Both?--Human Vs. Robotic Space Missions

In this episode Cornell University astronomer Jim Bell talks about future space missions and why people need to be part of them. Bell is the leader of the team operating the color cameras on the Mars rovers, and the author of the book Postcards From Mars and of an opinion piece in the August issue of Scientific American on humans in space. Plus we'll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned in this episode include www.itswild.org; http://marsrovers.nasa.gov

Did the Phoenix lander spot liquid water on Mars?

A team of researchers analyzing images and data gathered by the now-defunct Phoenix spacecraft believes that the lander spotted liquid water on Mars—and that such liquid may be common on the Red Planet.

India's first moon mission ends prematurely with spacecraft communications failure

The Indian space program joined an elite group last year when its first lunar probe entered orbit around the moon and began taking detailed observations.

Space Aged: 10 Spacecraft from Decades Past That Are Still Ticking [Slide Show]

Whether peering into deep space or checking on human activity, spacecraft and satellites from days gone by are still on the job

Voyagers to the End

The solar system may be dented at the bottom