As history has repeatedly shown, where there are valuable minerals to be unearthed, adventurous humans will arrive in droves – even if it means battling extreme conditions and risking life and limb. So…
There will be a future mining boom, as heralded in recent media stories. But this mining will take place in a location even more hostile than the Australian Outback – space. More specifically, the ore…
For decades, the Soviet Union was a major player in the exploration of space, famously locking horns with the US in the “Space Race” – a competition for orbital supremacy and solar system exploration throughout…
A team of Australian and European astronomers has discovered a highly unusual galaxy in the shape of an emerald-cut diamond roughly 70 million light years away. The astronomers - from Australia, Germany…
In mid-February, the Swiss Space Centre announced a plan to start removing space debris from orbit. Their proposal involved using a satellite, called CleanSpace One, to approach, grapple and then “de-orbit…
In its newly released budget request to Congress, the Obama Administration is seeking to reduce NASA’s funding by US$59m to US$17.7 billion – a reduction of just 0.03%, not that you would know that from…
In the past six months, it seems something has fallen from the sky every second minute. In September, the UARS satellite re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, causing a media frenzy. In October, the German…
Space exploration is one of the few science-rich human endeavours that captivates both expert and layperson alike. There is a mystery – a romanticism – associated with space research and technology that…
On Monday, to much fanfare, astronomers working with the Kepler space observatory (which was launched in March 2009) announced their first discovery of a planet orbiting within the “habitable zone” of…
It seems we’re about to come one step closer to putting man (and woman) on Mars. Is this exciting? Of course it is. Nothing fires the imagination quite like the prospect of walking around on a planet other…
In the early hours of this morning, the tranquility of the remote Gobi desert was shattered by the sound of a brand new spacecraft hurtling towards the sky. The rocket, Shenzhou-8 or “Divine Vessel”, is…
Occasionally, very occasionally, a discovery comes along that reshapes our view of the universe. Some discoveries teach us about ourselves; some teach us how to better interact with the world around us…
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams…
You might want to look up. Or maybe not. At some point between now and Saturday, a 6.5 tonne, bus-sized NASA satellite will burst through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into fiery chunks that could land…
Astronomers have a rare new star that is just 27 light years away from Earth, making it the closest young star ever found. AP Columbae, as the red dwarf star has been named, is just 40 million years old…
Asteroid dust collected by a Japanese space capsule that landed in Woomera last year has been matched with samples of meteorites found on Earth, providing new clues about where meteorites came from. The…