Outer space

The Smithsonian's first shot at online crowdfunding ended on Aug. 19 after raising a hefty $719,779 to restore the spacesuit that Neil Armstrong wore when he walked on the moon.

Astronauts living at the International Space Station took their first bites of space-grown lettuce on August 10, in what scientists described as another step toward enabling human missions to Mars.

The Perseid meteor shower is an annual event. Over 100 shooting stars per minute will be visible on August 12 creating a spectacular display and will peak at around August 12.

For optimum viewing, artificial light should be kept at a minimum. Binoculars aren’t necessary, nor are telescopes.

NASA provided us with a different angle of the moon, one we rarely have the opportunity to see from our planet, as a special camera fitted on a satellite shot the dark side of Earth’s ‘natural satellite’. The shots were taken on July 16, just as the moon was passing over the Pacific Ocean, NASA said.

Astronauts from Russia, Japan and the United States July 23 docked successfully with the International Space Station under six hours after they launched, NASA television showed.

Astronomers proposed a novel explanation July 6 for the strange appearance of the comet carrying Europe's robot probe Philae through outer space: alien microscopic life.

Russia's Progress M-28M spacecraft carrying 2.4 tonnes of cargo docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday, breaking a string of failed attempts by Russian and US spacecraft.

The docking took place in automatic mode, according to an official of Roskosmos, Russia's space agency, ITAR-TASS reported.

The presence or lack thereof, of water on Mars has been a point of contention and much debate and trepidation of scientists for decades. However, NASA’s Mars Rover has now discovered martial soil which shows that water must have existed on the red planet relatively “recently”, as in… in the past million years, give or take.

Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has already sent us wondrous pictures seemingly derived from sci-fi movies. Little grains of the universe’s majesty which have been revealed to humans thanks to the endeavors of science.

Astronomers using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile managed to look into the face of Medusa and give the world a clear image into the incredible ancient starburst.