CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA called off all attempts to fix its crippled Kepler space telescope Thursday. But it's not quite ready to call it quits on the remarkable, robotic planet hunter. Officials said they're looking at what science, if any, might be salvaged by using the broken spacecraft as is. The $600 million Kepler mission has been in trouble since May, unable to point with precision at faraway stars in its quest for other potential Earths. That's when a...

When a meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February, pieces of the bus-sized space rock hit the ground while its detonation shattered windows, set off car alarms and injured more than 1,000 people. Masked in the chaos, however, was an enormous plume of dust that the Russian meteor left behind in Earth's atmosphere. This cloud, which had hundreds of tons of material in it, was still lingering three months after the Feb. 15 explosion, a new study...

Artist's concept of the close-orbiting alien planet Kepler-78b, whose scorching-hot surface is likely a huge ocean of lava. (Cristina Sanchis Ojeda) Astronomers have discovered a scorching-hot "lava world" whose year lasts just 8.5 hours and determined that another planet candidate with an even tighter orbit is likely composed almost entirely of iron. The newfound Earth-size Kepler-78b is so close to its host star that its surface is likely an enormous ocean of lava, researchers said. Further, the discovery team was...

The sun unleashed a powerful storm early Tuesday morning, sending an enormous cloud of superheated particles rocketing toward Earth. The solar eruption, known as a (CME), occurred at 4:24 a.m. EDT (0824 GMT) Tuesday and blasted billions of tons of solar particles toward Earth at a mind-boggling speed of 2 million mph (3.3 million km/h). "Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 570...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- This is one baby picture you won't want to miss. The ALMA telescope in Chile has captured a close-up of the glowing material spewing from a newborn star. (MORE: ) The stunning images show material streaming from the baby star at incredible speed, glowing as it plows into the surrounding gas and dust. Astronomers say these illuminated jets are spewing out faster than ever measured before and are more energetic than previously thought. The glowing mass...

In this image from video made available by NASA, cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin, left, and Aleksandr Misurkin wave a Russian flag near the end of their spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013. (AP Photo/NASA) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A pair of spacewalking cosmonauts installed a new telescope mount on the International Space Station on Thursday despite a flaw in the device. Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin - making their second spacewalk in under a week...

It's your chance to see yourself from space. A new collage called was released by NASA this week. The image commemorates July's "Wave at Saturn" event, when the Cassini spacecraft turned its attention toward Earth and snapped a photo. SPACE.com reports more than 40,000 people took a moment to that day. People around the world that day, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL, says the event marked the...

The central peak of Bullialdus rising above the crater floor, with the crater wall in the background. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University) Scientists have discovered evidence of magmatic water on the moon's surface – water that originates deep within the lunar interior – according to a in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. The discovery marks the first time water that originates from the moon itself, rather than water carried there by solar wind or from meteorites crashing into its surface, has been...

Astronomers have found a twin star to Earth's own sun, only much older. The rare star is the oldest known "solar twin," and offers a peek at what Earth's star will look like in 4 billion years. The star, called HIP 102152, appears to be as similar to the sun in its basic characteristics as any other known star. However, whereas the sun is only 4.6 billion years old, HIP 102152 is 8.2 billion years old, and so represents a...

An artist's concept of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft firing its maneuvering thrusters in order to maintain a safe altitude as it orbits the moon. (NASA Ames/Dana Berry) NASA's next moon shot — a robotic spacecraft tasked with investigating lunar dust and the moon's thin atmosphere — is set to launch from Virginia this week. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE for short) is scheduled to start its journey to the moon on Friday...

The high temperatures of the meteorite impact 12,900 years ago produced mm-sized spherules of melted glass with the mullite and corundum crystal structure shown here. (Mukul Sharma) A meteor or comet impact near Quebec heaved a rain of hot melted rock along North America's Atlantic Coast about 12,900 years ago, a new study claims. Scientists have traced the geochemical signature of the BB-sized spherules that rained down back to their source, the 1.5-billion-year-old Quebecia terrane in northeastern Canada near the...

A key chemical ingredient for life may have been more abundant on early Mars than on early Earth, researchers say. The nutrient in question, phosphate, serves as the backbone of DNA and is also an essential part of the molecules cells use for energy and membranes. Scientists think it was also critical to reactions that led to the . (MORE: ) Mars is rich in phosphate, five to 10 times more so than Earth, based on analysis of meteorites from...