NASA on Monday counted down to a high-stakes attempt to orbit closer than ever to the planet Jupiter, on a $1.1 billion mission to probe the origin of the solar system.

The unmanned spacecraft, Juno, is expected to arrive late Monday in the vicinity of the largest planet in the solar system, five years after it launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Scientists reported Wednesday that they witnessed in unprecedented detail a star being ripped to shreds and devoured by a dormant supermassive black hole.

The Dutch inventor behind a ground-breaking project to remove millions of tonnes of plastics floating in vast ocean "garbage patches" unveiled Wednesday the first prototype of his ambitious sea-cleaning device.

India successfully launched Wednesday a rocket carrying a record 20 satellites as its famously frugal space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market.

The rocket blasted off from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota carrying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia, the most in a single Indian mission.

In the middle of southern Israel's desert, engineers are hard at work building the world's tallest solar tower, reflecting Israel's high hopes for renewable energy.

The sun-powered Solar Impulse 2 aircraft set off from New York's JFK airport early Monday, embarking on the transatlantic leg of its record-breaking flight around the world to promote renewable energy.

The flight, piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, is expected to take about 90 hours -- during which Piccard will only take short naps -- before landing at Spain's Seville airport.

An International Space Station crew including an American, a Briton and a Russian landed safely Saturday in the sun-drenched steppes of Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz TMA-19M capsule carrying NASA's Tim Kopra, Tim Peake of the European Space Agency and the Russian agency Roscosmos' Yuri Malenchenko touched down as scheduled at 3:15 p.m. local time (0915 GMT) about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

Researchers have found an organic molecule essential to biology in interstellar space for the first time, announced experts Tuesday, a discovery that could help solve a long-time mystery.

Like humans, the organic molecules that make up the universe can lean left-handed or right-handed, a preference known as chirality. Most molecules on Earth lean left -- but scientists don't know why.

Astronomers have discovered the largest planet outside our solar system orbiting two stars, at a distance that would make it potentially habitable for people, scientists announced Monday.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk shed light Saturday on his new plan to send an unmanned spaceship to Mars as early as 2018, as part of his quest to some day colonize the Red Planet.

Musk, the Internet entrepreneur who cofounded of PayPal and currently also runs Tesla Motors, earlier this year announced on Twitter that he was "Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018." But there was little in the way of details at the time.