TUCSON, Ariz. — Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander’s robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, [...]

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In May this year the EPOXI spacecraft (formerly known as Deep Impact) turned its cameras around from a distance of 50 million km and captured images for several hours.
These images, which included the moon passing in front of the Earth have been put together into an awesome animation. Enjoy!

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I love this image, it’s awe-inspiring and highlights what our science is capable of… it makes me proud to be part of mankind.
NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is the first [...]

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This “smiley face” crater was imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter last week.

The unnamed crater is about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) across. It is located among the Nereidum Montes, north of the Argyre basin, near 45.1°S, 55.0°W. North is toward the right and sunlight illuminates the scene from the upper right.
Credit: NASA / JPL / [...]

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According to astronomers there is a 1 in 75 chance that an asteroid will slam into Mars on 30 January 2008.
The asteroid, called 2007 WD5, was discovered on 20 November by a 1.5 metre telescope near Tucson, Arizona, US, that combs the skies as part of NASA’s efforts to detect asteroids with a chance [...]

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The sharpest ever image of the spiral galaxy M81 was released last week at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.
A spiral-shaped system of stars, dust, and gas clouds, the galaxy’s arms wind all the way down into the nucleus. Though the galaxy is located 11.6 million light-years away, the Hubble Space Telescope’s [...]

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This image of the Space Shuttle Columbia blasting off the launch pad was photographed from altitude by NASA Astronaut John W. Young aboard the Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) on November 12, 1981.
It’s a viewpoint not commonly seen and is absolutely awesome imo.

Link (Larger Image)

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NASA has released a new logo to celebrate it being 50 years old. NASA’s “birthday” is October 1, 1958.

I like the logo, it reminds me a little of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Link

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The original lightsaber used by Luke (Mark Hamill) will blast off into space in October aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery bound for the ISS.
This pointless (but geeky cool) exercise is to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope.

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A new moon has been discovered orbiting Saturn, which brings the number of satellites known to be spinning around the ringed giant to an impressive 60. The discovery was made by the Cassini Imaging Team studying images taken by the Cassini spacecraft back in May this year.
The moon has not been officially named as yet [...]

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Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer space telescope have detected water vapour in the atmosphere of extrasolar planet HD 189733b. The planet is far from being habitable though with an average temperature of about 1000 degrees Kelvin, however the discovery has led scientists to believe that water is more common out there in the Universe than was [...]

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