Struck by the legendary sniffing skills of man's best friend, scientists in the United States fitted a dog-inspired plastic nose to an explosives detector, and reported Thursday it worked much better.

Buzz Aldrin, the 86-year-old retired U.S. astronaut who was among the first men to walk on the Moon, has been evacuated from the South Pole for medical reasons, officials said Thursday.

Aldrin was visiting the South Pole as part of a tourist group, when his "condition deteriorated," said a statement from the operator, White Desert.

The periodic table got larger Wednesday after four new elements were officially named and added to the chart, including 'nihonium' -- the first ever to be discovered by Japanese scientists.

The new name for element 113, a highly radioactive element with an extremely short half-life, comes from Japan's name in Japanese -- 'nihon', literally 'the land of the rising sun'.

A mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef this year killed more corals than ever before, scientists said Tuesday, sounding the alarm over the delicate ecosystem.

The 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) long reef -- the world's biggest -- suffered its most severe bleaching in recorded history, due to warming sea temperatures during March and April, with the northern third bearing the brunt.

Astronauts may experience blurry vision and impaired eyesight after long spaceflights due to changes in spinal fluid that occur while in microgravity, researchers said Monday.

NASA on Saturday blasted off a new satellite designed to offer a "huge leap" in weather forecasting by sending back more frequent and higher-definition images of severe weather patterns, the U.S. space agency said.

Known as GOES-R (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites), the satellite was built by Lockheed Martin and lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 6:42 pm (2342 GMT).

Russia's Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday, carrying a European, a Russian and an American astronaut for a six-month mission at the orbiting outpost.

"Capture confirmed," said a NASA commentator as the spacecraft docked at the ISS at 4:58 pm (2158 GMT), U.S. space agency live television images showed.

China's Shenzhou-11 spacecraft returned to earth Friday, bringing home two astronauts from the rising power's longest-ever orbital mission in a milestone for its vaulting ambitions.

Skygazers took to high-rise buildings, observatories and beaches Monday to get a glimpse of the closest "supermoon" to Earth in almost seven decades, and snap dramatic pictures.

Under the scorching Zimbabwean sun, cattle seek shade among stunted thorn bushes in the drought-prone district of Zaka, where crops wither due to increasing temperatures and changing weather patterns.