A weak magnetic field and powerful solar wind stripped water from the early Earth's atmosphere 3.5 billions years ago and created stunning auroras, scientists said.

A radar aboard an Indian spacecraft has detected craters filled with ice on the Moon's north pole, NASA scientists said.

A journey from Earth to Mars could eventually take just 39 days - cutting current travel time nearly six times - according to a rocket scientist who has the ear of U.S. space agency NASA.

At least a quarter of the star clusters in the Milky Way were born elsewhere and have migrated into our galaxy, researchers say.

Previously unknown organic molecules have been discovered in a 40-year-old meteorite, suggesting the early Solar System contained a soup of highly complex organic chemistry long before life appeared.

Dan Falk, a Canadian science writer, has won the American Institute of Physics' prestigious Science Writing Award for a cover story in Cosmos.

There is a 75% chance that scientists have detected dark matter, in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), at an experiment deep underground in Minnesota, USA.

The most common type of galaxy changed from a "peculiar" shape six billion years ago to a typical spiral shape today, and may indicate galaxies have a more violent past than previously believed.

After a long silence, the Sun erupted in an unusual pattern of small solar flares, said an Australian astrophysicist, which may provide a unique opportunity to predict when bigger solar flares will erupt.

Gamma-ray flashes that occur in the Earth's atmosphere have been a mystery for over 15 years. But now NASA scientists will launch the first dedicated survey.

President Barack Obama's 2011 budget, to be submitted to U.S. Congress Monday, will propose abandoning a program to return NASA astronauts to the Moon, two Florida newspapers reported.

A ribbon of particles at the Solar System's edge "shocked" NASA researchers. Now they say it's a reflection off a strong galactic magnetic field, and holds the clues to the future of the Solar System.

Using a cosmological model that includes dark energy and dark matter, two American astrophysicists correctly predicted the shapes and proportions of the types of galaxies in the universe.

Astronomers have made the first direct capture of a spectrum of light from a planet outside the Solar System and are using it to decipher its composition.

The first Earth-like planet found outside of our Solar System is likely to be a volcanic wasteland inhospitable to life.

Habitable alien moons such as 'Pandora' – featured in the blockbuster film Avatar – could be detectable within a decade, says a new study.

NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered five new exoplanets, just 10 months after it launched into space to find Earth-like worlds.

NASA has celebrated Mars rover Spirit's six-year stint on the red planet. But it all may soon come to an end, stuck as it is in Martian sand.

Sending stuff into space is not cheap. How does NASA justify the expense? One way is to highlight the many technologies developed for the space program, but which now benefit society.

Circling the Sun are billions of comets and asteroids. Both are small and primordial and frequently cross the path of the planets - sometimes with cataclysmic results.

Researchers have released the first complete atlas of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula – and discovered 42 new ones in the process.

An Earth-like planet found orbiting a nearby star is rich in water - a major step forward in the search for worlds like our own, U.S. scientists say.

New images of the surface of a distant, dying star offer a preview of the ultimate fate of our own Sun, French scientists say.

Sun-like stars have for the first time been found to harbour super-Earths – rocky planets larger than Earth but smaller than ice giants like Neptune.

What happens if the world does not each an agreement in Copenhagen? A look at some of the geo-engineering schemes examined by the Royal Society, Britain's academy of sciences.