Japanese space agency leading five-year mission to Phobos, one of ‘most important unclimbed mountains in the solar system’

Japan is to launch a spacecraft on the world’s first mission to bring back samples from Phobos, one of the two small, potato-shaped moons orbiting Mars.

Scientists hope the mission, which is expected to take five years, will provide clues to how Phobos and its smaller sibling Deimos formed, and hopefully even shed light on the origins of life in the solar system.

School looking to sell piece of open land beloved by people in Devon town to fund refurbishments

On Saturdays throughout autumn, residents of Totnes have met at a field on the banks of the River Dart to play ballgames, fly kites or simply sit on the grass and chat.

But it hasn’t just been about having fun – this has been a “play protest” aimed at trying to save a beloved piece of open land in the historic Devon market town.

Expanding plume of fuel exhaust crystalized in the sky and reflected sunlight off frozen particles after Florida launch

A SpaceX rocket provided a stunning pre-dawn display over Florida as a egiant, luminescent “jellyfish cloud” spread for miles, caused by an expanding plume of fuel exhaust crystalizing in the sky and reflecting sunlight off the frozen particles.

The phenomenon occurred shortly after Tuesday’s 6.33am ET launch of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station.

Though mostly visible near the Arctic Circle, the natural phenomenon dazzled sky-gazers as far south Devon, Hampshire and Kent

The northern lights illuminated the skies across the UK on Friday and Saturday evening.

Sky-gazers as far south as Devon, Hampshire and Kent were treated to the dazzling natural phenomenon, also known as the aurora borealis.

Intense flash of radio waves is more than 10bn years old and has travelled through ‘approximately 80% of cosmic history’

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a mysterious flash of energy was released into the universe.

Astronomers have now detected that flash – a burst of radio waves which travelled for more than 10bn years before reaching Earth – what they believe to be the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) ever recorded.

MIT computer scientist led development of software for moon mission and earned Presidential Medal of Freedom

Margaret Hamilton, the computer pioneer whose software powered the first moon landing, has died, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced on Wednesday. She was 90.

In an era before titles such as software engineer and computer scientist became mainstream, Hamilton, who died on 30 September, learned to program under the tutelage of a renowned MIT meteorologist.

As well as books, the new facility in Colorado offers hundreds of kits to connect people with the natural world. We asked five of the first visitors what they thought of it

Mark Fink knows exactly why he opened the first public nature library in the US. “There are a lot of barriers for people to access nature here. We want people to learn about the birds and the plants in their own back yard and to appreciate that you don’t need a three-day camping trip in the mountains to experience nature.”

The library offers people in Colorado’s Adams county the opportunity to borrow books and equipment to help them to engage with the natural world – for free.