The US space giant has been linked to an apparent unauthorised flight over Wanaka yesterday morning by Sir Peter Jackson's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car.

Following 10 days of unsettled weather in the wake of Cyclone Pam, Nasa will make its second attempt to launch its heavy-lift super pressure balloon.

All systems are go for the launch from Wanaka Airport this morning of Nasa's heavy-lift super pressure balloon.

Aballoon the size of Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium is scheduled to lift off above the scenic Central Otago town of Wanaka on Tueday and float 34km into space.

Nasa was last night celebrating the arrival of its space probe into the orbit of dwarf planet Ceres but Kiwi stargazers will have to wait several weeks to see any fresh footage from the Dawn probe.

Millions of tonnes of nutrient-laden dust are blown to the Amazon from one of the world's most barren places

He works in a contact centre by day and in a Panmure halal butchery by night - but by 2026, Saeed Ghandhari could be manning the first human colony on Mars.

An Auckland man could end up swapping his job at the Ministry of Social Development for a one-way ticket to Mars.

Entrepreneurs are expanding the boundaries of rocket and satellite technology as the US makes room for private enterprise.

A year ago I started subscribing to Scientific American, a publication my older brother has read for years.

Hopes of finding water-based life in our galaxy took a leap forward after five Earth-sized planets were found around a distant star.

Dramatic geothermal landscape of Waimangu volcanic rift valley a miniature Mars for space buggy inspired by next robotic rover Nasa plans to land on red planet.

Only two weeks into the new year, the sun has sent out some crazy streams of radiation.

It's not evidence of "little green men" but intriguing "burps" of methane have been recorded by Nasa's Curiosity Rover - which may be from primitive microorganisms.

The unmanned Antares rocket that blew up in a spectacular fireball in the United States during a launch to the International Space Station was using two 40-year-old Soviet-made rocket engines of the same type as one that exploded during tests in May.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos will team up with a Boeing-Lockheed Martin to develop US-made rocket engines, in competition with Elon Musk's SpaceX venture.

Nasa has awarded its first private contracts for ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station.

An asteroid nicknamed after a maligned dog and with the potential to cause catastrophic damage will pass within 40,000km of Earth this morning.

Night-time images captured by US defence satellites show a New Zealand much brighter than it was in the early 1990s.

Satellites in orbit are routinely used for communication, imaging and navigation - yet many people don't understand how these satellites remain in space.

The US space agency's Opportunity rover has now clocked more kilometres on Mars than any man-made vehicle to reach another celestial body, Nasa has said.

Astrophysicists are mystified after concluding that 80 per cent of the light in the universe appears to be missing.

A galaxy more than 12 billion light years from Earth is heading for a "red and dead" future because it is running out of the fuel needed to make new stars.

India has declared itself the world's leader in cheap space exploration after its prime minister claimed that its Mars mission will cost less than the Oscar-winning science fiction film Gravity.

Astronomers have discovered an alien planet that could offer some of the most Earth-like conditions seen to date in the galaxy.