An unusually bright meteor shot across the Texas sky Saturday night, wowing people across the U.S. Southwest. The American Meteor Society received more than 250 reportsof “an extremely bright green light that rivaled the brightness of the sun.”The organization believes the meteor was at least 4-feet wide and weighed 4,000 pounds. “This event was so bright that it was picked up on a NASA meteor camera in the mountains of New Mexico over 500 miles away,” Dr. Bill Cooke with...

It's difficult to put the massive size of a sunspot into perspective, butJames Tyrwhitt-Drakehas released a time-lapse video that may help with that conundrum. The video at the top of this page was created by the Infinity Imagined blogger by stringing together more than 17,000 images of the sunspot, as they were captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, according to the Huffington Post. In the clip, Earth is projected next to the sunspot to provide scale and allow the human...

Stargazers everywhere are preparing for a beautiful showcase, as the 2014 Leonid Meteor Shower approaches. If forecasts stand correct, the meteor shower will peak on Monday afternoon for those in the eastern U.S. time zone, according to Scientific American. The best time to catch a glimpse of this brilliant display will be between midnight and dawn of Monday and Tuesday morning. This year's meteor shower will be of a smaller scale, as the Leonidswill be weak, Space.com reports. If you...

Friday will mark a major milestone for space exploration, and NASA plans to celebrate accordingly. Nearly 90,000 messages will be beamed to Mars to honor the 50-year anniversary of the Mariner 4 spacecraft's launch– the first ship to complete a fly-by of another planet– according to NBC News. Mariner 4 launched on Nov. 28, 1964, and sent back the first up-close images of the Red Planet seven months later, the report added. "Beam Me to Mars" will be carried out...

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is about to wake up from hibernation, and when it does, it’ll achieve space history. The mission will approach the surface of Pluto and New Horizons will come within 6,200 miles of the dwarf planet—the closest any spacecraft has come to its surface—according to ABC News. The last of the ship’s 18 hibernation periods ends Dec. 6, and the initial approach toward Pluto will begin on Jan. 15, 2015. The hibernation periods lasted anywhere from 36...

Tune into The Weather Channel beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET for live coverage of the Orion launch. Weather conditions will be favorable for NASA's Orion spacecraft launch tomorrow morning. The spacecraft, designed to eventually carry astronauts to Mars,is scheduled to lift off on its first test flight at 7:05 a.m. ET Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch window will be open for two hours and 39 minutes. Weather.com senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman said that temperatures during the launch window...

NASA's Orion spacecraft, designed to eventually carry astronauts to Mars,is scheduled to lift off on its first test flight at 7:05 a.m. ET Friday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch window will be open for two hours and 39 minutes. The Orion test launch is the first launch of a spacecraft designed to carry humans outside of orbit since Project Apollo. You can also tune into The Weather Channel beginning Friday at 6:30 a.m. ET for live coverage of the...

NASA postponed the Orion test flight until Friday, Dec. 5. (NASA/Kim Shiflett) Orion test flight, take two. After a valve malfunction and some windy weather prompted NASA to cancel today’s launch, the agency said it would aim for Friday morning, 7 a.m. Eastern time, for its next attempt. “Our plan is to fly tomorrow,” Orion Project Manager Mark Geyer said during a press briefing. Dan Collins, chief operating officer of United Launch Alliance, whose Delta IV Heavy rocket was to...

NASA’s Orion spacecraft was slated to leave Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida for a four and a half hour test flight at 7:05 a.m. Eastern time Thursday morning. However, several delays, including a boat moving into prohibited waters, windier-than-expected conditions and technical glitches, caused the agency to scrub today’s test flight. The decision was made five minutes before the launch window closed at 9:44 a.m. NASA said if it makes another attempt tomorrow morning, it would again aim...

Images sent back from Mars have a tendency to excite, inspire and confuse. In 1976, while scouting possible landing sites for Viking 2, NASA’s Viking 1 captured a photo of what appeared to be a massive face hewn into the planet’s surface. Since then NASA has sent back images of a jelly doughnut-shaped structure, a femur look-alike and 'skulls' aplenty, to the delight of conspiracy theorists and Martian lovers. (MORE:NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Completes ‘Picture Perfect’ Flight, Splashes Down in Pacific)...

NASA successfully launched the Orion spacecraft Friday morning at 7:04 a.m. ESTafter experiencing a setback Thursday. Delays from weather, technical issues with several of Orion’s valves and a boat in waters too close to the launch pad caused the space agency to postpone the launch. Friday’s forecast wasn't ideal, with cloudy conditions and light winds, but it was a mild morning with temperatures in the lower 70s. NASA decided early in the launch window that the conditions would be good...

Just before 11:30 a.m. EST, Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, completing what one NASA official called “the most perfect flight you could ever imagine.” Amber Philman, of NASA Communications, called the journey “picture perfect.” During this morning’s test flight, Orion did just what it was intended to do, according to NASA, orbiting the Earth twice, passing through the Van Allen radiation belt twice (with no ill-effects to the systems or computers aboard), separating from the rocket and splashing...