Yahoo! News Canada - Space/Astronomy Headlines

Does NASA’s 3D-printer pizza represent the future of food?

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:13:41 -0400

What if someone made you a perfectly normal-looking pizza, with your favourite toppings on it, and it smelled really good, but they told you it was made from algae, duckweed, grass and insects... would you eat it? This is the … Continue reading →

NASA rover Curiosity drills into second Martian rock; prepares to study it in detail

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:10:34 -0400

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Curiosity rover drills again.

NASA sees brightest impact on the moon on record

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:03:59 -0400

Exactly two months ago, on March 17, NASA astronomers captured images of a bright explosion on the moon — 10 times brighter than any other lunar impact they've ever seen… Continue reading →

Google buys B.C. firm's quantum computer for NASA lab

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:48:04 -0400

A quantum computer made by Burnaby, B.C.-based D-Wave Systems has been purchased by Google and installed at a NASA lab to solve problems requiring 'creativity' — something that conventional computers aren't good at.

NASA, Google buy quantum computer from B.C. firm

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:31:31 -0400

A quantum computer has been purchased from Burnaby, B.C.-based D-Wave Systems by a NASA-led group that aims to solve problems requiring creativity — something that conventional computers aren't good at.

NASA: New pump vanquishes space station ammonia "gusher," jury still out on little leak

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:47:32 -0400

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - An impromptu spacewalk over the weekend seems to have fixed a big ammonia leak at the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday.

Correction: Space Station-Star Trek story

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:06:04 -0400

WASHINGTON - WASHINGTON (AP) — In a story May 15 about astronauts at the International Space Station getting the new "Star Trek" movie, The Associated Press reported erroneously when the film opened on Earth. "Star Trek into Darkness" opened in the United States on Thursday; it opened in some other countries earlier in May.

How soon before another Canadian follows Hadfield into space?

Thu, 16 May 2013 05:20:13 -0400

While Chris Hadfield's stellar success in space may be inspiring other Canadians to dream of getting into orbit, opportunities seem few and far between — unless astronauts are willing to be very patient or space tourists are very rich.

Future of planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft uncertain after malfunction; NASA trying to fix

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:26:21 -0400

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope is broken, potentially jeopardizing the search for other worlds where life could exist outside our solar system.

NASA’s Kepler telescope suffers failure, but all is not lost!

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:54:57 -0400

NASA's planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, has been having problems over the past year, and it looks like it's suffered another failure that may put the future of the mission at risk. Kepler trails after the Earth as we orbit the Sun, … Continue reading →

Spacewalking astronauts detect no ISS leak

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:04:09 -0400

Two spacewalking astronauts have found no evidence of an ammonia leak in a cooling system at the International Space Station, but as a precaution they have replaced a suspect pump.

Spacewalk planned to fix ammonia leak on space station

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:06:00 -0400

MIAMI (Reuters) - NASA plans to send two astronauts aboard the International Space Station out on a spacewalk on Saturday to try to fix an ammonia leak in a cooling system on one of the station's solar arrays, the U.S. space agency said on Friday. The crew spotted a steady stream of small, white frozen ammonia flakes floating away from a coolant line outside the orbital outpost on Thursday. ...

NASA says International Space Station suffering serious ammonia leak

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:02:54 -0400

Thursday morning, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, commander of the International Space Station, contacted NASA mission control to report a potentially serious situation. The crew had spotted flakes of a white substance floating away from a point on the station, indicating … Continue reading →

NASA satellite sees incredible twister explode from the Sun

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:49:18 -0400

Just two days after NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an immense coronal mass ejection blast away from the Sun on Wednesday, it captured another spectacular event — an incredible solar eruption that looks like a twister on the surface of … Continue reading →

Asteroid awaiting NASA visit gets new name from boy, 9

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:11:49 -0400

A near-Earth asteroid that's getting a visit from a NASA spacecraft in 2018 has received a new name from a third-grader in North Carolina, NASA says.

NASA satellite captures massive eruption from the surface of the Sun

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:09:42 -0400

I don't know how you celebrated May Day yesterday, but the Sun had some pretty spectacular plans of its own. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured footage of an incredible coronal mass ejection — an immense eruption from the surface of … Continue reading →

NASA Sees Giant Solar Wave Erupt from the Sun (Video)

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:03:35 -0400

The sun celebrated May Day with a spectacular solar eruption Wednesday, unleashing a colossal wave of super-hot plasma captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft.

Skyrocketing inflation: Russia now charging NASA $70 million per seat to fly US astronauts

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:24:23 -0400

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA is blaming Congress for the need to pay $424 million more to Russia to get U.S. astronauts into space.

NASA spacecraft spies massive hurricane at Saturn’s north pole

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:48:39 -0400

If you got out over the weekend to see the best views of Saturn we've had in nearly 6 years, did you manage to get a look at the strange hexagon of clouds at the planet's north pole? How about … Continue reading →

Chris Hadfield explains the (gross) details of water recycling on the ISS

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:56:38 -0400

We use a lot of water in our daily lives. Estimates put the average water consumption per person at up over 300 litres a day in some parts of the world. The astronauts on the International Space Station don't consume … Continue reading →

Incredible NASA video compresses 3 years of the Sun into 3 minutes

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:55:47 -0400

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been in orbit for over three years now, keeping its eye on the Sun for us, so that scientists can study it and we can be alerted to potential solar flares. Now, as a … Continue reading →

Ex-NASA scientist hits back at 'Neanderthal' Conservatives

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:09:44 -0400

A U.S. activist derided by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver this week over his opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline says Canada's government is a "Neanderthal" on climate issues, in an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House.

Astronomers spot the smallest potentially-habitable planets yet

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:28:20 -0400

I love astronomy. It's one of the few topics that never fails to excite me, and the most exciting part of following astronomy news in recent years has been tracking the discovery of planets orbiting around other stars. Now, the … Continue reading →

NASA video captures unusual Beaufort Sea ice breakup

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:32:29 -0400

Scientists and ice-watchers are taking note of the way in which the Beaufort Sea is melting this year, as video from NASA shows an unusual - and dramatic - breakup.

Canada will help build world’s largest optical telescope

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 08:47:03 -0400

A new telescope has received the green-light for construction atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA) is one of the groups leading the way towards completing the project. The Thirty-Meter Telescope … Continue reading →

NASA's Wallops Island facility in Va. prepares for the spotlight with Antares rocket launch

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:16:01 -0400

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. - On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight.

Chris Hadfield answers the question: How do you sleep in space?

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:12:35 -0400

Living in space is very different from living on Earth, so much so that the engineers and astronauts need to put a lot of thought into what are the most mundane parts of our lives here on the planet's surface. … Continue reading →

NASA spacecraft spies possible hardware from 1971 Mars lander launched by Soviet Union

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:17:05 -0400

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Space fans from Russia have spotted what may be parts from a spacecraft that the Soviet Union landed on Mars in 1971.

Plot your own space missions with new NASA website

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:18:22 -0400

For the first time, NASA is giving the public a detailed look into how they plot the flight-plans for spacecraft missions. Sending a spacecraft out to another planet or object in the solar system isn't an easy task. It takes … Continue reading →

NASA’s next-gen planet hunter will root out nearby habitable worlds

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:35:06 -0400

With the success of the Kepler space telescope firmly established, NASA is now taking the next step in finding exoplanets, by approving a new orbiting telescope that will focus its search on finding habitable worlds around nearby stars. TESS (Transiting … Continue reading →

NASA to Launch Planet-Hunting Probe, Neutron Star Experiment in 2017

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 09:05:45 -0400

NASA has picked two new low-cost missions for launch in 2017: a planet-hunting satellite and an International Space Station experiment designed to probe the nature of exotic, super-dense neutron stars.

Senator: NASA hopes to put astronauts on asteroid by 2021 by hauling space rock close to Earth

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:02:26 -0400

WASHINGTON - A top U.S. senator says President Barack Obama and NASA are planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon. Then astronauts would explore it in 2021.

Canadians take on NASA design challenge for space exploration

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:15:56 -0400

Toronto and Winnipeg are among the 75 cities embarking on a 48-hour marathon to design both software and hardware to make space more accessible and more fun to explore.

NASA satellite witnesses Arctic ice sheet being torn to shreds

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:09:53 -0400

NASA's Suomi NPP polar-orbiting weather satellite captured dramatic footage of an 'extensive fracturing event' in the Arctic ice sheet this winter, and the scale of this event is causing some concern. The time-lapse video compresses down over two months worth … Continue reading →

Astronaut Celebrates Easter in Space (Easter Eggs, Included)

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:10:08 -0400

Children around the world aren't the only ones having an Easter egg hunt today. Astronauts in space will get Easter treats, too.

How an ancient astronomical error affects Easter

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:15:49 -0400

The date of the Easter celebration changes every year, but it's actually based on an ancient misunderstanding of astronomy.

Russian spaceship with 3 aboard successfully docks with International Space Station

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:07:03 -0400

MOSCOW - A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked Friday with the International Space Station, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting lab to six.

Soyuz spacecraft takes express route to space station

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:39:36 -0400

Three astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station today on a journey that will take less time than a flight from Halifax to Vancouver.

Man found guilty for stabbing common-law wife's lover while the three stargazed

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:31:46 -0400

Clive Gibbons met Edna Mueller when they were youngsters in an astronomy club and about 30 years later, he tried to kill her lover with a machete as the three of them were stargazing.

NASA chief: Federal spending cuts could slow commercial space progress in future

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:34:48 -0400

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The head of NASA says federal spending cuts could eventually slow progress on commercial efforts to fly to space.