Space, Astronomy, Astronaut, NASA News from Kepea

SPACE.com - WASHINGTON — A Senate panel approved a $19 billion NASA budget Wednesday that would cut in half the U.S. space agency's 2011 request for a new commercial crew initiative while pumping an unsought $3 billion into continued development of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and a heavy-lift rocket needed to launch it into deep space.

SPACE.com - For skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere, late summer is usually regarded as the prime "meteor-viewing season," with one of the best displays of the year reaching its peak in mid-August. But some lesser-known summer meteor displays can still dazzle.

SPACE.com - NASA's next-generation Mars rover took its first baby steps on Earth Friday – a few short drives that herald its upcoming mission to the red planet.

SPACE.com - Ever wanted to explore the surface of Mars? Now you can – at least virtually - thanks to a powerful camera aboard a spacecraft in orbit around Mars that has made the most accurate global map of the red planet in history.

AFP - Debris from a satellite destroyed in 2007 by a Chinese missile is in the vicinity of the International Space Station and astronauts are ready to take cover if required, a Russian official said Friday.

LiveScience.com - High-resolution satellite images and newly developed computer software have enabled NASA researchers to create the most accurate map to date of the snaking line that marks the edge of the ice sheet covering much of Antarctica.

SPACE.com - A camera riding on the world's first deep space solar sail has caught managed to observe a violent gamma-ray burst &#151 one of the most powerful explosions in the universe, Japanese space officials have announced.

SPACE.com - Despite overzealous news headlines this week, NASA's Kepler spacecraft has not indentified more than 100 Earth-like planets in the galaxy.

SPACE.com - Astronomers have found evidence of buckyballs - carbon molecules shaped like soccer balls - in the nebula around a distant white dwarf star. The discovery marks the largest molecules known to exist in space.

SPACE.com - Some astronomers believe a hidden mini star nicknamed Nemesis is orbiting the sun, but a new analysis of life extinction cycles on Earth suggests this dark companion may not exist.