Japan conversation robot ready for outer space

TOKYO (AP) -- The world's first space conversation experiment between a robot and humans is ready to be launched.

Developers from the Kirobo project, named after "kibo" or hope in Japanese and "robot," gathered in Tokyo Wednesday to demonstrate the humanoid robot's ability to talk.

Three Chinese Astronauts Land After Record-Breaking Spaceflight

A Chinese space capsule carrying three astronauts returned safely to Earth Tuesday (June 25), wrapping up the longest manned space mission in the nation's history.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft touched down at 8:08 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0008 GMT), capping a 15-day mission to China's orbitingTiangong 1 lab module. The spacecraft landed in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where the local time was 8:08 a.m. on Wednesday.

Alaska volcano erupts with new intensity, disrupts local flights

An Alaska volcano spewing ash and lava for the past six weeks erupted with new intensity early on Tuesday, belching a plume of cinders 5 miles into sky and onto a nearby town and disrupting local flights, officials said.

The eruptions from Pavlof Volcano, on the Alaska Peninsula 590 miles southwest of Anchorage, were its most powerful since its current eruptive phase began with low-level rumblings in mid-May, according to scientists at the federal-state Alaska Volcano Observatory.

VLT made a new snapshot of the planetary nebula

This absorbing new photo taken with a telescope Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory shows a sparkling ghostly green planetary nebula IC 1295 Environmental dim, dying star, located 3300 light-years away in the constellation of the Shield. Cnimok is the most detailed of when -either of the images of the object.

Stars the size of our Sun end their life cycles, turning into a tiny, faint white dwarfs. 

The new solar panel with 3-D texture

The untested solar panel with 3-D texture to be soon installed outside the International Space position (ISS), where they every day will know-how at 16, Sunrise, thus transitory the test procedure in rough environments.

As the ISS orbits the soil at a rate of about one transformation per hour and a half, 

Saturn's rings are drop on the surface of the planet rain

Astronomers have known for many years that the top of Saturn's atmosphere is water, but they could not pinpoint the location of the source of this water. Now, new observations have revealed that the water is poured rain on the surface of Saturn and its source - the famous rings of the giant planet.

"Saturn - is the first planet that demonstrates an active interaction between the atmosphere and ring system - said James O'Donoghue, a researcher from the University of Leicester and author of a new paper published in the journal Nature. 

Sofia telescope reveals the mechanism of formation of massive stars

Researchers from the Stratospheric Observatory Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), made ​​the incredibly detailed images of a massive star, immersed in a dense cocoon of dust and gas.

This star is called G35.20-0.74, or simply G35. It is one of the most massive protostar known to scientists, and is located relatively close to Earth - at a space of 8,000 light years.