The astronauts yous should start following on Twitter

When astronaut Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) returned to Earth from the International Space Station on Monday, he brought home something unique: more than 800,000 Twitter followers. Over the past five months, the Canadian commander has spent much of his free time tweeting pictures from space, interacting with his fans, and capturing video—of himself, his crewmates, and anything floating by in zero gravity.

Though Hadfield is probably the most famous astronaut on Twitter, he isn't the only one experimenting on social media. In fact, many astronauts—including those slated for upcoming missions—are actively engaging with people on sites like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. So who's worth following from down here on Earth?

Space fans might want to start with NASA Mission Specialist Karen Nyberg, who's the next astronaut slated to go into space on May 28 aboard the Russian Soyuz. It'll be Nyberg's second mission to the International Space Station and...

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SNS are really an amazing invention. It is now possible for you to follow news from people around the world, including those that travel to space. What an opportunity!

Rocket reaches space station in record time

A new Russian-American crew has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) after an express trip from Earth of under six hours, the fastest ever journey to the orbiting laboratory.

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts opened the hatches of their Soyuz-TMA spaceship and floated into the ISS to a warm welcome from the three incumbent crew.

Russia's Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and American Chris Cassidy are now expected to spend the next five months aboard the station after a hitch-free launch and docking.

Their record-breaking trip from blast-off at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to docking with the ISS lasted just...

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The newest arrivals to the International Space Station made it in record time - less time than it takes to go from Tokyo to Nagasaki on the Shinkansen.

Milky Way could contain 100 billion planets

It seems like hardly a week goes by without another planet being discovered in some far off stellar system, but a new study, released by the California Institute of Technology, indicates there will likely be many, many more such discoveries.

The Caltech team made this conclusion based on analyzing the planets orbiting the Kepler-32 star, which contains five planets and which the scientists say is representative of the vast majority of stars in our galaxy. Kepler-32 is classified as an M dwarf, and scientists say three out of every four stars in the galaxy are M dwarfs, also known as red dwarfs.

"There's at least 100 billion planets in the galaxy—just our galaxy," says John Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech and coauthor of the study, which was recently accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. "That's mind-boggling."

Scientists say their estimate of 100 billion stars is conservative because it doesn’t...

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Do you believe life exists on other planets? One reason many people believe is because the universe is so big. A new study indicates that there are many more planets than most can imagine. Perhaps that means greater possibilities of life.

NASA to crash probes into the moon

NASA is going to crash two lunar probes into the moon this Monday.

The U.S. space agency's twin spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, will fly low over the moon's surface and crash into the rim of a crater, the final move of a successful lunar-mapping mission.

These controlled crashes have been part of the plan from the mission's outset, but there will not be any live visuals, because the impacts are going to happen in the dark.

The mission's principal investigator, Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says people should not expect a...

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The American space agency is going to crash two probes into the moon. This is not the first time that it happens. Do you agree with the idea?

Cleaning up space junk

Keeping an eye out for dangerous debris is a critical part of operating the international space station. A week ago, Russian controllers were ready to take evasive action when two pieces of junk loomed close. Further inspection indicated a move wasn't necessary at that point. This new threat is believed to be slightly more serious.

Controllers take a very few risks with the station - they move it if the chances of a collision are greater than one in 10,000. Earlier this year, astronauts had to take refuge in escape capsules, when a piece of debris from a satellite was detected too late to move the ISS. But the space junk missed by about 23 kilometres.

NASA tracks pieces of debris bigger than ten centimetres. Their numbers are estimated to have increased by...

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We often hear about environmental pollution here on Earth. It seems like we also need to consider how we are polluting space.

Driving on Mars

There's a new vehicle driving around on Mars. What is it hoping to find? Neil and Chris discuss the latest exploration of the red planet in this week's 6 Minute English.

This week's question:

How long does it take Mars to go around, or orbit, the Sun? Is it:

a) 152 days
b) 687 days
c) 2024 days

Listen to the audio

Race to the Moon: The days of project Gemini

Shirley Griffith: Today, Harry Monroe and Tony Riggs report about America's second manned space program, Gemini. Two astronauts flew on each flight. Gemini's purpose was to bring the United States closer to its goal of landing astronauts on the moon.

 Tony Riggs: The astronauts of America's first manned program, Project Mercury, made six successful flights. They proved that people could survive the hostile environment of space.

In nineteen sixty-five America's space agency, NASA, was ready to begin its second manned program. NASA called it Gemini. The program was named for the two stars Castor and Pollux in the star group Gemini. The Gemini program would send two astronauts at a time into space.

Gemini would test the men's ability to live and...

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First color Mars-rover pictures, plus satellite shots of crashed gear

In its first color picture from the surface of Mars, released Tuesday, NASA's Curiosity rover shows the rim of its new home, 15,000-foot-deep (4,600-meter-deep) Gale Crater, shortly after landing on Monday.

The photo was shot with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. But because the arm hasn't yet been fully activated and the rover isn't yet mobile, the camera for now can point only in the direction dictated by the landing position.

"We can't control the orientation of the rover on landing," Peter Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said at a pre-landing press conference. "If it's pointed at the mountain, we'll get a...

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Mars Rover's "crazy" landing, step by step

Before the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity, can begin exploring Gale Crater (as shown in this artist's conception), the rover will have to survive a landing NASA calls seven minutes of terror (see video).

In that brief time around 1:30 a.m. ET Monday, friction, a parachute, and an unprecedented "sky crane" hovercraft will help take Curiosity from 13,200 miles (21,200 kilometers) an hour to zero—if everything goes to plan.

"When we proposed this plan, we were almost laughed off the project," Adam Steltzner, NASA's chief engineer for the operation, says in the new National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012. "People said it couldn't possibly work."

The Curiosity rover is the largest and...

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Astronomers detect cries of a dying star

For the first time astronomers have detected the last gasps of a star being torn apart by a previously dormant giant black hole.

The signals, which came from a galaxy 3.9 billion light years away, were x-rays generated by matter heated to millions of degrees and torn apart as material from the star crosses the black hole's event horizon.

Known as quasi-periodic oscillations, they are a characteristic feature of stellar black holes, which have about 10 times the mass of the Sun.

Dr Rubens Reis from the University of Michigan is the...

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Russian supply ship docks with International Space Station

An unmanned Russian cargo ship has re-docked with the International Space Station after a failed attempt five days earlier.

The docking Sunday was successful, after an earlier attempt failed because of problems with a new docking system.

The new docking system will be sent back to Earth for modification.

The supply ship will load garbage from the space station, then be sent to burn up in the atmosphere.

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