NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity spent three years driving many miles across the martian surface to reach the western rim of the Endeavor Crater. This crater is 14 miles across and scientist believe it may hold clay-like materials.

After taking many images of its surroundings, the rover will now begin searching for ancient rocks and looking for the elusive clay minerals. The rover has already spent some time using its robotic arm to examine a boulder to see what its made of.

Rover Spirit lost communications last year but Opportunity is still going strong after being on the red planet since 2004, well beyond the three-month expected life span.

Opportunity and Spirit will soon be joined by the yet to be launched nuclear-powered mobile laboratory named Curiosity. Curiosity is set for launch in November and should reach Mars in the summer of 2012.

Scientists have discovered a new planet (Also known as pulsar J1719-1438) about an eighth of the way to the center of the Milk Way from Earth which happens to be over 4,000 light years away. The most interesting discovery of this new planet is that it seems made of diamond, which brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "A Shiny Rock".
 
"This remnant is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times," said Dr Michael Keith (CSIRO), one of the research team members.

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NASA is in the process of developing a new technology under project Laser Communications Relay Demonstration or LCRD which will allow them to provide faster means of communications from Mars.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) currently can only send at speeds of around 6 Mbps or about like a DSL modem here on Earth. At this rate, it can take upwards to 90 minutes to transmit a single high resolution image to Earth from Mars. With the MRO outfitted with the new technology it would be able to transmit the same high resolution image back to Earth at over 100 Mbps and only taking about 5 minutes to do so.

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With NASA Shuttle Atlantis having its last night in space and the retirement of the shuttle program everyone is looking to NASA for the next big mission. While we know that the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is already developed, it's still years away from completion. In the meantime, all eyes can be on the next Mars mission with NASA's new Mars Science Laboratory rover called 'Curiosity'.

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NASA Shuttle Atlantis touched down on the tarmac at 5:57AM EDT for the final time at NASA's Kennedy Space Center after a journey of 5.2 million miles while on the STS-135 mission and over 200 orbits around the Earth. This marks the end of the NASA Shuttle program for good.

"Although we got to take the ride," said Commander Chris Ferguson on behalf of his crew, " we sure hope that everybody who has ever worked on, or touched, or looked at, or envied or admired a space shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us."

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Tomorrow will be a bittersweet day for the crew aboard the NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis as they begin their return home to Earth. This will be the last space shuttle re-entry, the last landing, and the very last crew to pilot the shuttle in U.S. history.

The Atlantis Space Shuttle undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday after delivering a lot of supplies, batteries, and other hardware to the station. They are bringing a lot of trash and everything else that needs to be brought back to Earth, as it's the very last opportunity for NASA to do so on its own.

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