National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Icy mountain ranges can be seen rising from Pluto's surface, according to the first close-up images released on July 15 from NASA's New Horizon's spacecraft after its historic of flyby of the dwarf planet.

The mountains' elevation reaches 11,000 feet (3,400 meters), the US space agency said, or about as high as the Rocky Mountains.    

Reuters Photo

An unmanned NASA spacecraft whizzed by Pluto on July 14, making its closest approach in the climax of a decade-long journey to explore the dwarf planet for the first time, the US space agency said.

There's a near-perfect heart shape on Pluto's rusty red surface. The dwarf planet is dotted with bright points which may be ice caps, and a mysterious dark shape nicknamed "The Whale."    

The presence or lack thereof, of water on Mars has been a point of contention and much debate and trepidation of scientists for decades. However, NASA’s Mars Rover has now discovered martial soil which shows that water must have existed on the red planet relatively “recently”, as in… in the past million years, give or take.

Geological feature or an … alien-made structure on the surface of Mars?
Internet chatter was abuzz on Tuesday after photographs taken by NASA’s Curiosity Rover apparently showed what appears to be a pyramid-shaped object on the “Red Planet”.
The pic was taken on May 7 (in earth’s calendar).

A trip to Mars may appear futuristic and distant but may become reality at some point. NASA’s latest plans show it’s not an utopic sci-fi notion. However, French photographer Julian Mauve, with his own project “Greetings From Mars” brings us one step closer to such a trip.

NASA launched a giant balloon June 8  carrying a kind of "flying saucer" that will test technologies for landing on Mars, but its outsized parachute only partly deployed.

The aircraft fitted with the largest parachute ever constructed -- after several days of weather-related delays -- was launched from a military base in Hawaii.    

NASA astronaut Terry Virts had a wonderful trip over the eastern Med.  Cairo, Beirut, Cyprus and Turkey were seen by the astronaut, who didn’t forget to tweet it.

NASA said May 26 it has chosen a trove of instruments to send to Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa, as it press forward with its search for evidence the orb could support life.

The nine gadgets -- from cameras to radars to magnetic field gauges -- will be used to try to determine if Europa has an ocean beneath its glacial surface, as scientists have long suspected.    

NASA astronomers used the Hubble telescope to record a rare phenomenon: A star consuming another nearby star and releasing a pan-shaped giant disk of gases.

The “cannibalistic” star was discovered a few decades ago and was dubbed “Nasty 1″ due to its name (NaSt1) and its unusual behavior.