A reusable, water-powered Mars lander that will allow humans to explore the Red Planet from an orbiting 'base camp' as early as the 2030s was unveiled Friday by US defence giant Lockheed Martin.

Governments and private firms are collaborating on projects to send humans to new frontiers, with NASA planning missions next decade into the space between Earth and the Moon to prepare for trips to Mars.

Iran's on-off space programme has received a boost after a recent satellite launch was seen to annoy Washington, with Tehran dusting off plans for a manned mission, perhaps with Moscow's assistance.

A team of six naval officers are starting a historic and gruelling around-the-world mission on Sunday -- the first circumnavigation of the globe by an Indian all-female crew.

Two high-intensity solar flares were emitted Wednesday, the second of which was the most intense recorded since the start of this sun cycle in December 2008, NASA said.

A lonely monkey at an Israeli zoo has found a way to soothe her maternal urges: by adopting a chicken.

Millions of Americans gazed in wonder through telescopes, cameras and disposable protective glasses Monday as the moon blotted out the sun in the first full-blown solar eclipse to sweep the U.S. from coast to coast in nearly a century.

On Monday, when a total solar eclipse sweeps across the United States for the first time in 99 years, people gathering in Charleston, South Carolina, will be the last on the continent to experience it.

A dragon eating the Sun. Make that a giant toad. A demon. No, a vampire! 

Depending on which ancient society you were part of, these were among the ravenous monsters blamed whenever the life-giving star at the center of our existence disappeared behind the Moon for a full solar eclipse.

U.S. researchers have successfully carried out gene editing on human embryos using the revolutionary technique known as CRISPR, the first time the procedure has been performed in the U.S., a report said Thursday.

"The effort, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, involved changing the DNA of a large number of one-cell embryos with the gene-editing technique CRISPR, according to people familiar with the scientific results," the MIT Technology Review said.

A small green sponge discovered in dark, icy waters of the Pacific off Alaska could be the first effective weapon against pancreatic cancer, researchers said Wednesday.