The Hubble Space Telescope is still busy snapping away and capturing detailed images in deep and near space. Its latest contribution to astro-science is images of two of the largest known asteroids to date.

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) — Russian computers that control the international space station’s orientation and supply of oxygen and water have failed, potentially extending the space shuttle’s mission — or cutting it short. Russian engineers are not sure why the computers stopped working. A failure of this type has never occurred before on the space station. [...]

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Scientists have discovered what appear to be sea-size bodies of liquid, probably methane or ethane, on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon. The discovery by the international Cassini spacecraft was welcomed by researchers, who have long theorized that Titan possessed hydrocarbon seas because of methane and other organic compounds in [...]

A NASA astronaut was arrested Monday on battery and attempted kidnapping charges after allegedly trying to subdue a romantic rival with pepper spray and abduct her from a parking lot at Orlando International Airport, police said.

LONDON (AP) — Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says he wants to undertake a zero-gravity flight aboard an airplane this year as a precursor to a journey into space, a newspaper reported Monday. “This year I’m planning a zero-gravity flight and to go into space in 2009,” he was quoted as saying in The Daily Telegraph newspaper. [...]

Source: SPACE.com Written by: Leonard David (Space Staff Writer) Progress is being made on defining a human mission to an asteroid. Experts at several NASA centers are sketching out a prospective piloted stopover at an asteroid — a trek that could return samples from a targeted space rock as well as honing astronaut proficiency and [...]

Written by: Tariq Malik (Space.com Staff Writer) The pieces are coming together for NASA’s next spaceship Orion as space agency engineers begin working with lead contractor Lockheed Martin to shape the vehicle’s cockpit. “We’re bringing the design teams together and looking at the features of this so that we can adjust and have one integrated [...]

Despite changing weather patterns and an increase in the UFO activity around the ISS the NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis landed safely with all six of its astronauts in tow. Atlantis touched down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center before dawn at about 06:21 a.m. EDT with a 12-day mission that focued [...]

Source: MSNBC Historic new guidelines approved by astronomers in Prague This lineup shows the 12 planets that were proposed last week, with a wedge of the sun at far left. Ceres, Pluto, Charon and 2003 UB313 are barely visible. Now Charon will continue to be considered Pluto’s satellite, and the three other worlds will be [...]

Source: CNN Space & Science LONDON, England (AP) — Former “Dallas” star Victoria Principal, “Superman Returns” director Bryan Singer and designer Philippe Starck have booked their flights for tourist trips into outer space, an executive for Virgin Galactic said Monday. The company, part of British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, has sold some 200 tickets [...]

Submitted by: Kyle Nin (SoSF Staff Reporter) Source: World News Australia Two newly discovered moons orbiting the last known planet in our solar system, Pluto, have been officially named as Nix and Hydra. Christened at the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the body in charge of approving celestial names, the names were chosen by their discoverers, [...]

Submitted by: Kyle Nin The Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of liquid water spewing from geysers on one of Saturn’s icy moons, raising the tantalizing possibility that the celestial object harbors life. The surprising discovery excited some scientists, who say the Saturn moon, Enceladus, should be added to the short list of places within the [...]