m. c. de marco

By observing the remains of smashed up asteroids around dead stars, astronomers were able to deduce their chemical composition. They found that the dust of many chewed-up asteroids resembles the materials inside Earth and the other small, rocky inner planets of our solar system.

Space is getting crowded. The last 12 months have seen everything from a high profile space tourist, a powerful new space telescope, and everyone's favorite cuddly-looking microbes launched into space. Here are this year's tops.

The Cassini space probe snapped a series of images during two hours in July that have been put together to create a full, natural color view of the planet, its rings, and six of its moons.

New backgrounds in 3...2..

Early in the campaign trail Obama sent mixed signals on his support for manned exploration and as a NASA supporter I admit that I was fearing the worst: But now the good news is that it turns out that not only is Obama dead serious about not only going back to the moon, but trying to beat China. The second Space Race has begun!

If you’ve been staring at the Sun lately, then you may have noticed it looks a wee bit bigger today than it did a few days ago. That’s not because the UV light from the Sun is frying your retina; it’s actually true. Today is perihelion, the time when the Earth is closest to the Sun in its orbit.

Time travel seems like stuff of science fiction, but in a sense, astronomers do it all the time.

Researchers say that an abrupt cooling of the Earth about 12,900 years ago may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.

Late on Christmas Eve, one last wish was sent, by e-mail: Please let NASA Administrator Michael Griffin keep his job. It was from his wife. Rebecca Griffin, who works in marketing, sent her message with the subject line "Campaign for Mike" to friends and family.

A NASA report on the last minutes of Space Shuttle Columbia cited problems with the crew's helmets, spacesuits and restraints, which resulted in "lethal trauma" to the seven astronauts aboard.

Space.com – Tue Dec 30, 11:47 am ETA delightful display of planets and the moon will occur on New Year's Eve for anyone wishing to step outside and look up just after sunset. Venus, brighter than all other planets and stars, will dangle just below the thin crescent moon in the southwestern sky...

The two Mars rovers operating right now on the surface of Mars, Spirit and Opportunity, will turn five the 3rd and 24th respectively. Their original 90-days of service has been surpassed by more than 20x as both rovers still carry out missions even today on the red planet - weather permitting, of course.

And you thought Earth was a big place...Comments are now back however any more arguing and they go off again.Order of appearance Earth Moon Mercury Mars Venus UranusNeptunSaturnJupiterSun/SolSiriusPolluxArcturusRigel

Is the next generation of spacecraft fundamentally flawed? Or are the troubles routine?

NASA is developing a new generation of spacecraft to replace its aging shuttle fleet and return astronauts to the Moon by 2020. The first spacecraft in the Constellation program is expected to be launched in 2015, five years after the scheduled end of the shuttle program.

That's no moon... that's a fully opera - No, wait, it is a moon. Ganymede, in fact, as captured disappearing behind Jupiter by the Hubble Telescope.

I was trying to think of some irony here and I'm sure there is a good Eliot Spitzer joke somewhere but I am too groggy to do it myself.