High Stakes: Europe Aims for 1st Successful Mars Landing Today and other top stories.

• High Stakes: Europe Aims for 1st Successful Mars Landing Today

  

  The Schiaparelli lander — part of the European-Russian ExoMars 2016 mission — is scheduled to touch down on the Martian surface this morning at 10:48 a.m. EDT (1448 GMT). You can follow the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of the European ...

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• Seeing Red: Pluto Probe's Next Target Has a Bloody Hue

  

  Artist's illustration of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering a Kuiper Belt object (KBO), as part of an extended mission. New Horizons is set to fly past the KBO 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019. Recent data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggests 2014 MU69 is even redder than Pluto. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI The tiny, faraway object that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly by in 2019 is even redder than Pluto, new observations by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest. The New Hori..

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• To The Surprise Of No One, NASA Predicts 2016 Will Be The Hottest Year On Record

  

  Following the news of yet another “warmest month ever,” NASA has basically called it: This year will be the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880. Last month was the warmest September ever recorded, narrowly beating the previous 2014 record by 0.004 degrees Celsius, according to NASA. September’s global average surface temperature was about 0.91 degrees Celsius above average, NASA said. Eleven of the past 12 months have set new high-temperature records, it added. Responding to the news, Gav..

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• Get Ready For Halloween By Watching The Moon's 'Occultation' Tuesday Night

  

  Enlarge this image A waning gibbous moon occultation will be visible Tuesday night in parts of the United States. JPL/NASA hide caption toggle caption JPL/NASA A waning gibbous moon occultation will be visible Tuesday night in parts of the United States. JPL/NASA Stargazers, ready your telescopes: An unusual lunar event is going to be visi..

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• Mysterious Bison Hybrid Revealed from Ancient DNA and Cave Paintings

  

  Clever detective work involving research on both ancient DNA and cave paintings from the last ice age has revealed a previously unknown species of hybrid bison, according to a new study. Researchers initially nicknamed the newfound bison the "Higgs Bison," because, just like the once-elusive subatomic particle known as the Higgs Boson, the bison's very existence had never been confirmed, and it took about 15 years to piece together data that proved its existence. But now, thanks to anc..

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• Gorgeous Mars 'Nightglow' Spotted by NASA Orbiter (Photos, Video)

  

  The first detailed look at Martian "nightglow" has been revealed, thanks to the work of NASA's newest Red Planet orbiter. The space agency's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) probe took global pictures of the Red Planet in ultraviolet (UV) light, revealing how winds flow at high altitudes. You can see a video of the UV nightglow on Mars here. "Nightglow" refers to a phenomenon in which a planet's sky faintly glows, even without external light. On Mars, this is the result..

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• Mysterious discovery: Two new cavities detected in Egypt's Great Pyramid

  

  Researchers using an imaging technology called muography to “see” inside the Great Pyramid of Giza believe they have found two previously undiscovered cavities in the more than 4,500-year-old structure, which is the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu. “We are now able to confirm the existence of a ‘void’ hidden behind the North Face, that could have the form of at least one corridor going inside the Great Pyramid,” Scan Pyramid reported over the weekend. “The precise shape, size, and exact posi..

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• US-Russian crew blasts off for space station

  

  BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan A U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off from Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a two-day journey to the International Space Station.The Soyuz space ship carrying NASA's Shane Kimbrough and Russians Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14:05 local time (0805 GMT) and reached orbit about eight minutes later.It will travel in space for two days before docking at the station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth..

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• Chinese astronauts enter space station following docking

  

  In this image taken off the screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016 and released by Xinhua News Agency, two Chinese astronauts Jing Haipeng, left and Chen Dong salute in the space lab Tiangong 2. China …more.

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• Engine troubles prompt NASA's Juno spacecraft to change plans

  

  After encountering engine troubles on Sunday, NASA researchers have adjusted Juno’s orbit plan.The probe was originally scheduled to fire up its main rocket on Wednesday, reducing its orbital period around Jupiter from 53 days to just 14. Officials chose to initiate the “period reduction maneuver” (PRM) in order to study Juno’s fuel pressurization system, but technical difficulties forced them to postpone.“Telemetry indicates that two helium check valves that play an important role in the firin..

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Morimoto leaving The Modern Honolulu .	Did your zodiac sign change? Don't worry, NASA says astrology is still fake .
Movie pirate? Don't trust Plex Cloud .	Elon Musk just unveiled a critical piece of his plan to save humanity by colonizing Mars .