Today's Reuters Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News: | | Apollo 13 notebook fetches $388,375 at auction Wed,30 Nov 2011 04:25 PM PST Reuters - DALLAS (Reuters) - Shortly after Apollo 13 astronauts reported, "Houston, we have had a problem," Commander James Lovell jotted down handwritten calculations in hopes of guiding his crew safely home. The notebook with those calculations from the aborted 1970 NASA mission to the moon fetched $388,375 at auction on Wednesday in Dallas when it was sold to an American collector who was not identified. The notebook, the main attraction of a space memorabilia auction, was part of retired NASA commander Lovell's personal collection of artifacts. ... Full Story | Top | Microscopic worms may hold key to living on Mars Wed,30 Nov 2011 05:07 AM PST Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists believe microscopic worms which are biologically very similar to humans may be the key to helping humans colonize other planets like Mars by giving clues on coping with long-term space living. A team of scientists led by Nathaniel Szewczyk from Notthingham University blasted 4,000 of the worms, known as known as Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans, into space on board the Space Shuttle Discovery, and studied their progress. ... Full Story | Top | NASA rover launched to seek out life clues on Mars Tue,29 Nov 2011 12:51 PM PST Reuters - CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An unmanned Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on Saturday, launching a $2.5 billion nuclear-powered NASA rover toward Mars to look for clues on what could sustain life on the Red Planet. The 20-story-tall booster built by United Launch Alliance lifted off from its seaside launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:02 a.m. EST (3:02 p.m. GMT). It soared through partly cloudy skies into space, carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory on a 354-million mile (556 million km), nearly nine-month journey to the planet. ... Full Story | Top | Medvedev suggests prosecution for Russia space failure Sat,26 Nov 2011 07:19 AM PST Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev raised the prospect of criminal prosecution for space mishaps on Saturday following a series of failed launches that have embarrassed Russia. Earlier this month, a probe designed to bring back soil samples from the Mars moon Phobos got stuck in Earth's orbit, leaving Russia's first interplanetary mission in years with almost no chance of success. The probe failure came less than three months after a cargo ship carrying food and fuel to the International Space Station burned up in the atmosphere shortly after launch. ... Full Story | Top | Factbox: Mars and its missions Sat,26 Nov 2011 07:04 AM PST Reuters - (Reuters) - Here are some facts about Mars and about missions to the red planet, as United Launch Alliance prepares to send aloft on Saturday an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket carrying NASA's Mars Science Laboratory. MISSIONS TO MARS: - One of a pair of Mars rovers that arrived on the planet in January 2004 is still working. Its twin succumbed to the harsh environment in 2010. They returned evidence that Mars was once far wetter and warmer than the dry, cold desert that exists today. ... Full Story | Top | Search narrowed for Higgs: does it exist? Fri,25 Nov 2011 05:04 AM PST Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - CERN physicists have moved the focus of their search for the Higgs boson, the particle many think gave the universe form after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, to a narrow band on the mass spectrum, a spokesman said on Wednesday. And science bloggers close to the research center are suggesting it might be clear by mid-December that the boson is a chimera and some other mechanism to explain how matter changed to mass at the birth of the cosmos will have to be sought. ... Full Story | Top | Search narrowed for Higgs: does it exist? Wed,23 Nov 2011 12:34 PM PST Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - CERN physicists have moved the focus of their search for the Higgs boson, the particle many think gave the universe form after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, to a narrow band on the mass spectrum, a spokesman said on Wednesday. And science bloggers close to the research center are suggesting it might be clear by mid-December that the boson is a chimera and some other mechanism to explain how matter changed to mass at the birth of the cosmos will have to be sought. ... Full Story | Top | Rats help Colombia sniff out deadly landmines Wed,23 Nov 2011 10:05 AM PST Reuters - BOGOTA (Reuters) - In a laboratory on the grounds of a police-guarded complex, 11 white-furred rats wait their turn to impress trainers and perhaps receive a bit of sugar as reward. The rodents could play an important role in making conflict-wracked Colombia safer. They are in the final stages of a training program to find landmines that kill or injure hundreds of people each year in Colombia. ... Full Story | Top | Study rejects "faster than light" particle finding Mon,21 Nov 2011 11:21 AM PST Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - An international team of scientists in Italy studying the same neutrino particles colleagues say appear to have travelled faster than light rejected the startling finding this weekend, saying their tests had shown it must be wrong. The September announcement of the finding, backed up last week after new studies, caused a furor in the scientific world as it seemed to suggest Albert Einstein's ideas on relativity, and much of modern physics, were based on a mistaken premise. ... Full Story | Top | New test finds neutrinos still faster than light Fri,18 Nov 2011 06:50 AM PST Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - A new experiment appears to provide further evidence that Einstein may have been wrong when he said nothing could go faster than the speed of light, a theory that underpins modern thinking on how the universe works. The new evidence, challenging a dogma of science that has held since Albert Einstein laid out his theory of relativity in 1905, appeared to confirm a startling finding that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos could travel fractions of a second faster. ... Full Story | Top | "Big Bang" machine to get huge upgrade in 2020 Thu,17 Nov 2011 05:11 AM PST Reuters - GENEVA (Reuters) - Physicists from around the globe launched a major program on Wednesday aimed at converting the LHC "Big Bang" particle collider at CERN near Geneva into a vastly more powerful cosmic research machine by the year 2020. CERN officials said the effort, involving scientific establishments in the European Union, the United States and Japan, would demand development of new technologies in fields ranging from super-conducting magnets to energy transfer lines. ... Full Story | Top | China spacecraft returns to Earth after docking test Thu,17 Nov 2011 09:16 AM PST Reuters - BEIJING (Reuters) - An unmanned Chinese spacecraft returned to Earth successfully on Thursday after more than two weeks in orbit, marking a pivotal moment for the rising power's plans to secure a long-term manned foothold in space. The Shenzhou 8 spacecraft touched down in northern China's Inner Mongolia region after a fiery return to Earth, a live broadcast on Chinese television showed. ... Full Story | Top | "Alps under the ice" gives clues to global warming Wed,16 Nov 2011 10:09 AM PST Reuters - LONDON (Reuters) - The mystery of how a subglacial mountain range the size of the Alps formed up to 250 million years ago has finally been solved, scientists said on Wednesday, which could help map the effects of climate change. The Gamburtsev subglacial mountains are buried 3 km below the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, the largest remaining body of ice on the planet. Experts are trying to learn more about the frozen continent as even a small thaw could swamp low-lying coastal areas and cities. ... Full Story | Top | Russian, U.S. crew safely dock with space station Wed,16 Nov 2011 06:18 AM PST Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three astronauts in Russia's Soyuz spacecraft safely docked with the International Space Station on Wednesday, to the relief of agencies who had feared they might have to leave the orbiting base empty for the first time in a decade. Moscow hopes the smooth flight -- the first since NASA retired its space shuttles this summer -- will restore faith in its space program after the crash of a freight ship and a series of botched launches. The NASA shutdown means Russian spaceships are the only way to ferry goods and crews to the $100-billion space station, backed by 16 nations. ... Full Story | Top | Analysis: Botched Mars mission shows Russian industry troubles Wed,16 Nov 2011 05:03 AM PST Reuters - MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's unsuccessful launch of a Mars moon probe points up the problems of a once-pioneering space industry struggling to recover after a generation of brain drain and crimped budgets. An unmanned craft, launched last Wednesday in what was meant to be post-Soviet Russia's interplanetary debut, got stuck in Earth's orbit and may drop down into the atmosphere within days. The failure rattled Russian space officials but came as no surprise to many industry veterans who saw the ambitious mission to bring back dirt from the Martian moon Phobos as a pipe dream. ... Full Story | Top |
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