Articles by Katherine Noyes

Buoyed by the recent success of its Mars rover Curiosity, NASA on Tuesday announced plans for a multiyear Mars program that includes launching a new robotic science rover in 2020 ...

This story was originally published on Aug. 22, 2012, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. Just after 11 p.m. on Aug. 15, 1977, while pointing toward the constellation Sagittarius, Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope picked up a mysterious transmission that would very soon make history....

Of all the space objects humans have come across so far, asteroids are surely among the more anxiety-producing examples, thanks to their recurring habit of barreling past our planet at terrifying speeds and uncomfortably close proximity ...

Astronomers have wondered for centuries about the possibility of Earth-like planets in the neighboring Alpha Centauri star system, but only just recently did their ongoing search bear fruit. Specifically, in an announcement made last week, European astronomers said they have discovered a planet with about the mass of Earth orbiting a star in Alpha Centauri...

Astronomers have long suspected that Jupiter undergoes more frequent collisions with space objects than we know, but this past Monday one apparently occurred that was so dramatic as to even be visible with amateur telescopes here on Earth Wisconsin-based amateur astronomer Dan Peterson first reportedthe event, having viewed it as it happened. Soon ...

Luke Skywalker's fictional home planet Tatooine in the Star Wars films was perhaps most memorable for its two suns, but astronomers working on NASA's Kepler mission recently discovered something much like it here in our own galaxy ...

Just after 11 p.m. on Aug. 15, 1977, while pointing toward the constellation Sagittarius, Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope picked up a mysterious transmission that would very soon make history For 72 seconds, the Big Ear was able to listen to that signal, which has since come to be known as the "Wow! Signal" for the excited notation ...

Following the most complex landing ever attempted on Mars, NASA's most advanced Mars rover to date landed on the Red Planet at 10:32 p.m. PDT on Sunday Dubbed "Curiosity," the one-ton, car-sized rover had been in flight for 36 weeks. Its complicated touchdown -- including the final severing of the bridle cords and flyaway maneuver of the rocket bac...

There's been considerable debate over the existence of Gliese 581g ever since the discovery of the "Goldilocks" planet was first reported nearly two years ago, but new research claims to provide additional evidence that the potentially habitable "super-Earth" really is out there ...

Pluto may no longer be considered a true planet following its official reclassification in 2006, but that doesn't appear to be stopping the tiny dwarf planet from amassing a considerable number of celestial "followers." Just this week, in fact, a team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope announced their discovery of yet another moon o...

Mention the words, "splitting the atom," and most people will automatically think of nuclear fission, bombs and radioactivity Recently, however, physicists at Germany's University of Bonn not only managed to "split" an atom in a different way -- using quantum mechanics -- but also put it back together again....

The planet Venus will create a rare spectacle on Tuesday when it passes directly in front of our sun, creating an image for viewers on Earth that won't be repeated until the year 2117 ...

A giant but unseen planet may lurk on the outer edge of our solar system, making its presence known only by disrupting the orbits of nearby celestial objects, according to Rodney Gomes, an astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil, who presented a paper on the topic earlier this month ...

When the SpaceX Dragon capsule blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop the company's Falcon rocket Saturday morning, it will be doing more than just setting off on another cargo-laden trip to the International Space Station ...

Today's hard drives may be smaller, faster, cheaper and more capacious than their predecessors, but the need for ever-tinier components is making it difficult to keep improving them Therein lies at least part of the motivation behind biocomputing -- in which microscopic biological molecules are being recruited to play a role -- and recently scienti...

It may have been a "bad moon" rising in the famous 1969 song by Creedence Clearwater Revival, but this weekend's full moon could well inspire predictions for trouble of a similar kind That's because it's this year's "supermoon" -- the full moon that occurs when the moon is closest to Earth -- and supermoons are often believed to wreak even more hav...

A technical issue disrupted 4G LTE network service from Verizon Wireless for some customers between late Tuesday and late Wednesday, but the issue is now resolved That's according to the company, which issued only a terse comment on Thursday morning....

NASA's Kepler mission on Monday confirmed the discovery of a small planet 600 light-years away from Earth in the "habitable zone" of a star not unlike our own sun About 2.4 times the size of Earth, the newly confirmed planet -- called "Kepler-22b" -- is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone, or the region where liquid ...

Users of Google Maps are already accustomed to relying on the technology for directions to places like the airport or mall, but now they can also use it for help getting around inside once they've arrived ...

The next generation of Microsoft's Kinect input device may be able to read users' lips and emotions, according to a Monday report on Eurogamer The forthcoming device, which is expected to come bundled with Xbox consoles, will not just sense motions the way the current Kinect generation does, but will also allow games to read lips, recognize which w...