When Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off in January, it will carry the Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM) experiment, which studies soil behavior under conditions that cannot be duplicated on Earth — ...

Have you ever played hide-and-seek in a new place? It’s much harder than playing at home. You only know the obvious hiding spots: under the bed, in the closet, behind the couch. The trick is trying to ...

Extremophiles are a favorite tool of astrobiologists. But not only are they good for understanding the kind of extreme environments that life can survive in, sometimes they are useful as actual tools, ...

PHOENIX -- The first sample of Martian dirt dumped onto the opening of the Phoenix lander's tiny testing oven failed to reach the instrument and scientists said Saturday they will devote a few days to ...

Human settlement on Mars could be one step closer after Australian researchers discovered a way to make metal using the planet's red dirt. Researchers from the CSIRO and Swinburne University announced ...