Space Science

First lady Michelle Obama has some advice for some Tennessee high school graduates: Strike your own path in college and life and work to overcome inevitable failures with determination and grit.

Texas has joined the crowd of Gulf of Mexico states to file suit against BP Plc, Halliburton Co and others for their role in one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.

Paul McCartney is kicking off the North American leg of his "Out There" tour in Orlando.

Chicago will shut down part of its "L" elevated rail system's busiest line for five months starting on Sunday, forcing thousands of commuters to seek other routes and creating the biggest such U.S. transit disruption in two decades.

The Powerball jackpot Saturday night could be even higher than the record $600 million being advertised, possibly rivaling the largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, a Texas Lottery official said on Saturday.

Opportunity pops a ‘wheelie’ on Mars on May 15, 2013 (Sol 3308) and then made history by driving further to the mountain ahead on the next day, May 16 (Sol 3309), to establish a new American distance driving record for a vehicle on another world. This navcam mosaic shows the view forward to Opportunity’s future destinations of Solander Point and Cape Tribulation along the lengthy rim of huge Endeavour crater spanning 14 miles (22 km) in diameter. See below our complete map of the 9 Year Journey of Opportunity on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Kenneth Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo Now more than 9 years and counting into her planned mere 90 day mission to Mars, NASA’s legendary Opportunity rover has smashed past another space milestone and established a new distance driving record for an American vehicle on another world this week. On Thursday, May 16, the long-lived Opportunity drove another 263 feet (80 meters) on Mars – bringing her total odometry since landing on 24 January 2004 to 22.220 miles (35.760 kilometers) – and broke through the 40 year old driving record set back in December 1972 by Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. See below our complete map of the 9 Year Journey of Opportunity on Mars. Cernan and Schmitt visited Earth’s moon on America’s final lunar landing mission and drove their mission’s Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV-3) 22.210 miles (35.744 kilometers) over the course of three days on the moon’s surface at Taurus-Littrow. Apollo 17 lunar rover at final resting place on the Moon. Lunar module in the background. Credit: NASA Cernan was ecstatic at the prospect of the Apollo 17 record finally being surpassed. “The record we established with a roving vehicle was made to be broken, and I’m excited and proud to be able to pass the torch to Opportunity, ” said Cernan to team member Jim Rice of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, in a NASA statement. And Opportunity still has plenty of juice left! So, although there are no guarantees, one can reasonably expect the phenomenal Opportunity robot to easily eclipse the ‘Solar System World Record’ for driving distance on another world that is currently held by the Soviet Union’s remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover. In 1973, Lunokhod 2 traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor. Why could Opportunity continue farther into record setting territory ? Because Opportunity’s handlers back on Earth have dispatched the Martian robot on an epic trek to continue blazing a path forward around the eroded rim of the huge crater named ‘Endeavour’ – where she has been conducting ground breaking science since arriving at the “Cape York” rim segment in mid 2011. Out-of-this-World Records. This chart illustrates comparisons among the distances driven by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of Earth’s moon and Mars. Of the vehicles shown, the NASA Mars rovers Opportunity and Curiosity are still active and the totals for those two are distances driven as of May 15, 2013. Opportunity set the new NASA driving record on May 15, 2013 by traveling 22.220 miles (35.760 kilometers). The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union’s remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth’s moon in 1973. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Opportunity has just now set sail for her next crater rim destination named “Solander Point”, an area about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) away – due south from “Cape York.” Endeavour Crater is 14 miles (22 km) wide, featuring terrain with older rocks than previously inspected and unlike anything studied before. It’s a place no one ever dared dream of reaching prior to Opportunity’s launch in the summer of 2003 and landing on the Meridiani Planum region in 2004. Opportunity will blast through the world record milestone held by

It's all about the odds.With the majority of possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, someone is almost sure to win the game's highest jackpot on Saturday night.

It has been a while since I shared a snippet of the book project with you, so here's an update: Yesterday I completed a short burst of activity in which I re-did two pages in a story that were just horrible to behold. This is a panel form one of the pages. I'm pleased [...]

Mike Gold - Director of Operations for Bigelow Aerospace is asked by Shepard Johnson about the Bigelow's involvement with FAA UFO reports. Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) is referenced in the FAA Federal Aviation Regulations / Aeronautical Instruction Manual (FAR/AIM) as a place where pilots can submit UFO reports. Location: Smithsonian Air and Space Museum May 16, 2013. Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), a sister company to Bigelow Aerospace, is a research organization that focuses on the identification, evaluation, and acquisition of novel and emerging technologies as they specifically relate to spacecraft. BAASS is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad.