Space Science

Lottery officials have announced winning numbers in a massive jackpot.

While Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited the moon for three days in December 1972, they drove the lunar rover 22.2 statute miles (35.7 kilometers). That was the farthest total distance for any U.S. vehicle driving on a world other than Earth until this past Thursday. The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation Thursday that the rover rolled past the U.S. off-planet road trip record and was within a multi-week drive of beating the international record set by a Soviet lunar rover in 1973.

Authorities are investigating the recent discovery of a pair of letters containing the deadly poison.

Authorities have ruled out foul play in Friday's collision.

Authorities say an officer's bullet killed a college student during a response to a home invasion.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — A simple test could have alerted officials that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, long before authorities determined that as many as a million Marines and their families were exposed to a witch's brew of cancer-causing chemicals.

Britain's first official astronaut, Major Tim Peake, 41, has been selected to fly on a five-month mission on the International Space Station in 2015, it is believed. The go-ahead for the flight will be seen as a major boost for the UK's space industry. Peake graduated as a European Space Agency astronaut more than two years ago and has been waiting for a space mission since then, Ian Sample writes for The Guardian. UK Astronaut Major Tim Peake Peake, who is married with two sons, is considered to be Britain's first official astronaut because in the past those UK citizens who have flown in space have either been privately funded for their missions – such as Helen Sharman who flew on a Russian rocket in 1991 – or have taken out American citizenship, such as Nick Foale and Piers Sellers, who have both flown on the US space shuttle. Details of his Peake's space station flight are expected at a press conference on Monday, May 20, 2013 at the Science Museum in London.

But the odds of winning the estimated $600 million prize remain astronomically low.

Laurent SilvaniThe northern lights shine over La Baie in Quebec at 2 a.m. Saturday, in a picture taken by Laurent Silvani. To see more of Silvani's work, check out his Silvani.ca website and his Facebook page.By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News Follow @b0yle A slight solar storm ejected from a powerful sunspot brightened skies as far south as Colorado on Friday night — and there should be more to come.The heightened geomagnetic activity was sparked by a burst of electrically charged particles thrown off from an active spot on the sun known as Region 1748. That region is the one responsible for four powerful X-class flares that blasted out from the sun this week. Region 1748 is just now turning in our direction, and forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center say it has the potential to throw some hefty storms our way. Storms from the sun have the potential to disrupt satellite communications and power grids, and in extreme cases, the radiation risk could force airlines to reroute their intercontinental flights to lower latitudes. But Joe Kunches, a spokesman for the prediction center, said experts now have much better capabilities at their command to reduce the risks. And so far, he said, the active sun has been throwing "softballs" at us — at least compared with bigger flare-ups like the Halloween storms of 2003 or the Bastille Day storm of 2000.The most noticeable effects of recent solar disruptions have come in the form of enhanced auroral displays. SpaceWeather.com reports that faint glows were recorded Friday night in Colorado as well as Vermont, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Washington state.Farther north, the fireworks show was significantly brighter. Astrophotographer Laurent Silvani captured some great images from Quebec's Saguenay region, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Quebec City. "Following a magnetic storm, the aurora borealis was particularly visible in the sky with its waves and colors. A particularly beautiful sight!" he wrote in an email. "Many people from the Saguenay do not know that there are auroras occasionally here. They are surprised to see my pictures every time."Check out Silvani's website and Facebook page for more.For additional views of auroral glories — including, yes, some photos of the southern lights as seen from Antarctica —take a spin through SpaceWeather.com's photo gallery. And who knows? You might be able to catch the show yourself over the next couple of nights. Another geomagnetic storm is expected to sweep over Earth's magnetic field on Sunday, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.To find out what can be seen from where, keep an eye on the center's Facebook page as well as its Ovation aurora forecast maps. If you're in the aurora zone, the best time to look is after midnight. The best places are far away from city lights, with clear, crisp skies. Got pictures? Share them with us via NBC News' FirstPerson photo upload page.While you're waiting for those dark skies, feast your eyes on these time-lapse videos and our slideshow: Shawn Malone presents North Country Dreamland from LakeSuperiorPhoto on Vimeo. "All scenes are within approximately 200 miles of my home in Marquette, Michigan," Malone writes. "This video is my first time-lapse compilation of a resultant 10,000 photo frames equaling 33 scenes of various night sky events from Northern Michigan 2012. It took a year to shoot and a bit of tenacity and persistence to get this into a form of coherent electrified cosmic goodness." You'll see northern lights as well as meteor showers, planets and other sky wonders. For the best effect, watch it at full screen in HD. Thomas Kast presents Aurora - Queen of the Night on Vimeo. "After a long winter here in Finland with many beautiful northern lights, I'm very happy and proud to share my timelapse video of the aurora borealis with you," Kast writes. "This is the result of

Investigators of a train collision in Connecticut have ruled out foul play.