NASA - Latest Space News & Updates

NASA has discovered signs of liquid water on Mars, it will announce at an 11:30 a.m. ET press conference. Scheduled to appear are the authors of a 2011 study that suggested sloping lines seen on the Red Planet are formed by liquid water, more a briny solution than what you're used to seeing on Earth. It has been believed that Mars is too cold, and its atmospheric pressure to low, to support liquid water, which is essential for life.

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Telescope has spotted the first roughly Earth-sized world orbiting in the "Goldilocks zone" of another star – offering perhaps the best bet so far for life elsewhere in the universe. A year on Kepler-452b, which is about 1,400 light years from us in the constellation Cygnus, is 385 days, meaning its orbit is just a bit farther away from its star than the Earth is from the sun. That places it squarely within what planetary scientists call the habitable zone, or "Goldilocks" zone — not too cold and not too hot.

So, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was just named to be the chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness as Republicans take over the Senate. This subcommittee (which used to be just Space and Science but was recently renamed) is in charge of oversight of, among other things, NASA. This is not a good thing. Just how bad it is will be determined. Before I rip into this, I want to be as fair as possible here: Poking around the Web, I don’t see any statements from Cruz that I'd consider directly antithetical to NASA’s efforts specifically to explore space. For example, in 2013 he wanted to reduce NASA’s budget, but that was more so that it would comply with the caps set by the Budget Control Act.

NASA's unmanned Orion spacecraft has successfully splashed down about 400 miles west of La Paz, Mexico, in the Pacific Ocean after a liftoff, two orbits and re-entry that lasted just under 4 1/2 hours. Orion, which could one day take astronauts to Mars, made a "bull's-eye splashdown" at 11:29 a.m. ET, mission control said, after the spacecraft endured a searing 4,000-degree Fahrenheit re-entry and was carried to the ocean surface under four giant red-and-white parachutes. Mission control called the first test of the capsule a "picture perfect" mission that had surmounted "significant milestones" for the program that could eventually pave the way for putting astronauts on the surface of the Red Planet.

In a striking new video, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center shows exactly how carbon pollution travels across the planet over the course of a year, moving away from the largest polluters and across the atmosphere. This computer model also shows how carbon dioxide levels can fluctuate throughout the year, and how its path is affected by things like wind, weather, and geography.

According to new data released Friday from NASA and the Japanese Meteorological Agency, last month was the warmest October globally since official weather records have been kept in the late 1800s. According to NASA, last month tied with 2005 as the warmest October on record globally. Japan’s data show the month as significantly warmer than October 2003, its previously warmest October. There wasn’t such a thing as October the last time global temperatures were this warm, which recent research has dated to at least 4,000 years ago. That fact brings a bit of context to the litany of new worldwide temperature records set in what’s shaping up to be an exceptionally warm 2014.

NASA's Antares rocket was supposed to resupply the International Space Station but it exploded shortly after liftoff tonight.The rocket was unmanned, thank God. The rocket was owned by Orbital Sciences but was contracted by NASA to stock the space station. The company told the Associated Press that no one was believed to be hurt and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities."

A few days ago, I told you that—according to NASA data—we just finished the warmest six-month streak on record. Welp, it just got worse. According to data released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the warmest September on record globally. What’s more—and here’s the kicker—the NOAA says the Earth has just completed its warmest 12-month period on record. From the NOAA: