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US astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the Moon, has died aged 85

Captain Mitchell passed away at a hospice in West Palm Beach, Florida, one day before the 45th anniversary of his Moon landing, his family said. As part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, he spent more than nine hours on the Moon conducting experiments. He said he had undergone an epiphany in space and in later life revealed a belief that aliens had visited Earth. Mr Mitchell's mission to the Moon was the fourth in the US Apollo series, and the first to follow the ill-fated Apollo 13 which aborted its attempt to land after an oxygen tank explosion. Mr Mitchell and his crewmate, another Navy officer, Captain Alan Shepard, made it safely to the lunar surface. Their landing site was the Fra Mauro Highlands, a hilly area that was the target of the failed Apollo 13 mission. During their 33 hours at the site, the two astronauts collected 45kg (94lb) of Moonrock for examination back on earth and completed the longest moonwalk in history. Capt Shepard als...

Cassini probe taste water chemistry over Saturn's moon Enceladus

water flowing in moon The Nasa craft swept just 50km above the moon's surface in a final attempt to "taste" the chemistry of water jets spewing from its south pole. Enceladus has produced a series of major discoveries that mean it is now considered one of the most promising places to find life beyond Earth. Scientists say it has an ocean beneath its icy crust. What is more, the conditions in this global body of liquid water could be benign enough to support microbial organisms. "Enceladus is not just an ocean world - it's a world that might provide a habitable environment for life as we know it," said Cassini program scientist Curt Niebur, in a media briefing on Monday. "On Wednesday we'll plunge deeper into that magnificent plume coming from the South Pole than ever before. And we will collect the best sample ever from an ocean beyond earth."Cassini will attempt to detect molecular hydrogen during Wednesday's encounter. ...

An image of Kerberos Pluto's moon finally shows itself

It shows the object to have two lobes, which may be the consequence of icy bodies bumping into each other and joining up. Kerberos's larger lobe is judged to be about 8km across. The smaller lobe is roughly 5km in diameter. Styx, the other little moon in the system, is of a comparable size. Mission scientists say these satellites are brighter than they expected. Planetary bodies usually darken over time as a result of chemical changes triggered by sunlight and cosmic ray impacts. But these moons reflect about 50% of all incident light, which indicates their water-ice covering is very clean. Kerberos orbits about 60,000km from Pluto and is the second- outermost of five moons. It sits between Nix and Hydra, and beyond the orbits of Styx and the much larger Charon, the dominant moon in the system. The newly released image of Kerberos was acquired by New Horizons' Lorri camera from a distance of just under 400,000km. The picture incorporates a number...

European and Russian space agencies send a lander to an unexplored area at the Moon's south pole

It will be one of a series of missions that prepares for the return of humans to the surface and a possible permanent settlement. The spacecraft will assess whether there is water, and raw materials to make fuel and oxygen. We have obtained exclusive details of the mission, called Luna 27, which is set for launch in five years' time. The mission is one of a series led by the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos, to go back to the Moon.These ventures will continue where the exploration programme that was halted by the Soviet Union in the mid 1970s left off, according to Prof Igor Mitrofanov, of the Space Research Institute in Moscow, who is one of the lead scientists. But unlike efforts in the 1960s and 70s, when the Soviet Union was working in competition with the US and other nations, he added, "we have to work together with our international colleagues"."We have to go to the Moon. The 21st Century will be the century when it will be the permanent outpos...

Armstrong risked life in a variety of experimental vehicles before he became an astronaut

In the center of a large, bright hangar at California's Edwards Air Force Base was a large cross made of two iron girders balanced on a universal truck joint. Six thrusters on the ends of the cross's limbs shot spurts of compressed nitrogen every time Neil Armstrong, sitting in a makeshift cockpit on the cross's forward end, moved the control stick in his left hand. It might not have looked it in 1956, but this barebones simulator was the future Moonwalker's first step into space. Armstrong's love affair with aviation began when he was six years old and skipped Sunday school to take an airplane ride with his father. Inspired, Armstrong devoured books and magazines about flying, built model airplanes, and eventually earned his private pilot's license at 16 before he even learned to drive. In 1947, he began his formal training, enrolling at Purdue University, Indiana, in a four year engineering programmer in exchange for...