The iconic Ring Nebula may seem like just a stunning circle of wispy interstellar gas, but new images from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal it to be more like a deep-space jelly doughnut, scientists say.
If an extreme solar storm aimed at the Earth hits in just the right way, it could put interconnected electrical grids around the world at serious risk, experts say.
Whether or not NASA's Kepler spacecraft can bounce back from the malfunction that has stalled its search for alien planets, the mission's place in history is assured, scientists say.
The much-anticipated incoming Comet ISON, which some scientists hope will become the "comet of the century" later this year, may not be visible to the naked eye yet, but you don't have to wait months to see this icy wanderer. The comet takes center stage in an online telescope webcast today (May 19).
The sun storm erupted late Tuesday (May 14) during a powerful solar flare — the fourth unleashed by a single sunspot in just 48 hours — and hurled a massive cloud of charged particles out into space at millions of miles an hour.
The moon generated a surprisingly intense magnetic field until at least 3.56 billion years ago, 160 million years longer than previously thought, a new study reports.
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has swallowed its first tiny bite of Martian soil, after standing down for a spell while scientists checked out some strange bright bits in the dirt.
These stories serve to show how even the smartest among us can err, and that in fact to achieve a big breakthrough, big risks are necessary, which sometimes also involve big failures.
Dec 14, 2012; 5:00 AM ET The Mars Science Laboratory Rover 'Curiosity' continues its sampling and analyzing of the Martian surface.
