Leslie Kean, author of "UFOs:  Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record," says that criticism of her book is misplaced — and that a systematic study of unidentified flying objects is sorely needed. UFO - Unidentified flying object - Paranormal - Author - Organizations

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: The UFO debate usually focuses on official reports that go back years or decades — but strange things are still being seen in the sky, by folks just like you. UFO - Unidentified flying object - Paranormal - Alan Boyle - Organizations

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: One of the stars in a double-star set is spewing out material like a blazing pinwheel, creating an eerie spiral in space that’s spinning around the Internet as well. Astronomy - Hubble Space Telescope - Alan Boyle - Star - Space

When a NASA satellite met its doom in a fiery blaze in Earth's atmosphere after a seven-year mission, a bunch of college students were at the controls. NASA - Space - Satellite - Atmosphere of Earth - Technology

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: A laser-guided optics system provides a "Star Wars" moment at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Very Large Telescope - European Southern Observatory - Chile - Star Wars - Astronomy

Seven years ago, a physicist conjectured that the expansion of the universe at the time of the big bang was highly chaotic. Now he and a colleague have proven it using rigorous mathematical arguments. Their study reports not only that chaos is absolute but also the mathematical tools that can be used to detect it. Applied to the most accepted model for the universe's evolution, these tools demonstrate the early universe was chaotic.

ESO has released a spectacular new image of NGC 300, a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way, and located in the nearby Sculptor Group of galaxies. Taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, this 50-hour exposure reveals the structure of the galaxy in exquisite detail. NGC 300 lies about six million light-years away and appears to be about two thirds the size of the full Moon on the sky.

Now that astronomers are finding rocky worlds orbiting distant stars, they're asking the next logical questions: do any of those worlds have volcanoes? And if so, could we detect them? Work by theorists suggests that the answer to the latter is a qualified "yes."

New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals that asteroids somewhat near Earth, termed near-Earth objects, are a mixed bunch, with a surprisingly wide array of compositions.

NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018. The small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere approximately four million miles from our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered.

Experiments prompted by a 2008 surprise from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest that soil examined by NASA's Viking Mars landers in 1976 may have contained carbon-based chemical building blocks of life.

With a loud roar and mighty column of flame, NASA and ATK Aerospace Systems successfully completed a two-minute, full-scale test of the largest and most powerful solid rocket motor designed for flight. The motor is potentially transferable to future heavy-lift launch vehicle designs.

Observations made with NASA's newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope of a nearby supernova are allowing astronomers to measure the velocity and composition of "star guts" being ejected into space following the explosion, according to a new study.

The European Space Agency's Herschel infrared space observatory has discovered that ultraviolet starlight is the key ingredient for making water in space. It is the only explanation for why a dying star is surrounded by a gigantic cloud of hot water vapor.

A new method of predicting solar storms that could help to avoid widespread power and communications blackouts costing billions of pounds has been launched by researchers in the UK.

Just as we grow used to satellite navigation in everyday life, media reports argue that a coming surge in solar activity could render satnav devices useless, perhaps even frying satellites themselves. Is it true? No.

With a brilliant, finely tuned spark of ultraviolet light, a physicist has helped NASA scientists successfully position a crucial UV sensor inside a space-borne instrument to observe a "hidden" layer of the Sun where violent space weather can originate.

Astronomers have analyzed light passing through the upper atmosphere of the giant planet HD 80606 b, about 190 light years from Earth, and determined that its atmosphere contains the element potassium.

In December 2010, IceCube -- the world's first kilometer-scale neutrino observatory, located beneath the Antarctic ice -- will finally be completed after two decades of planning. A new article provides a comprehensive description of the observatory, its instrumentation, and its scientific mission

Space scientists around the world are celebrating ten years of ground-breaking discoveries by "Cluster," a mission that is illuminating the mysteries of the magnetosphere, the northern lights and the solar wind. Cluster is a European Space Agency mission, launched in summer 2000. It consists of a unique constellation of four spacecraft flying in formation around Earth, studying the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere.

The galaxy NGC 4666 takes pride of place at the centre of this new image, made in visible light with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. NGC 4666 is a remarkable galaxy with very vigorous star formation and an unusual "superwind" of out-flowing gas. It had previously been observed in X-rays by the ESA XMM-Newton space telescope, and the image presented here was taken to allow further study of other objects detected in the earlier X-ray observations.

One of the instruments on a 2016 mission to orbit Mars will provide daily maps of global, pole-to-pole, vertical distributions of the temperature, dust, water vapor and ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere.

Undergraduate students, who have been helping to control five NASA satellites, participated in the unusual decommissioning of a functioning satellite with a failed science payload in recent days, bringing the craft into Earth re-entry to burn up.

Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars's equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery.

Researchers have developed a system that can safely induce the sensory and mobility disturbances astronauts often experience when returning to Earth, making it an excellent operational training tool. The Galvanic vestibular stimulation system delivers small amounts of current to a person's vestibular nerve, mimicking sensorimotor disturbances that can affect an astronaut's ability to walk and stand and impact their ability to land a spacecraft.