|  This Rocket Is Going to Mars with NASA's MAVEN Probe (Photos)  | CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Atlas 5 rocket set to take NASA's next Mars probe into space Monday is on the launch pad. Earlier today (Nov. 16) the United Launch Alliance rocket housing the space agency's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft (MAVEN) rolled out onto the pad in preparation for the launch.
| Read More » The 10 Fastest Growing Job Titles Technology jobs have replaced those in middle management as the positions employers are trying to fill most, new research shows. A study by job matching service TheLadders revealed that the fastest-growing jobs shy away from management, and instead require deep educational qualifications and specific skills in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Indicating a trend beyond employment, four of the seven fastest-growing technology jobs — DevOps engineer, iOS developer, data scientist and Android developer — did not even exist on TheLadders five years ago. "In examining job growth over the past five years, there is an undeniable demand for developers and analysts who possess unique expertise within the burgeoning STEM industries," said Shankar Mishra, vice president of data science and analytics for TheLadders. Read More » Americans Reveal Who They'd Rather Work For: Men or Women A recent Gallup poll found that about 60 percent of Americans still have a gender preference when it comes to their boss, and the majority of those individuals would rather work for a man. [8 Things Bosses Say That Make Workers Happy] Read More » NASA Spacecraft Launching Monday Will Probe Mars Atmosphere Mystery  | NASA's newest Mars probe is set to launch Monday (Nov. 18), on a mission to help figure out how the Red Planet shifted from a warm and wet world long ago to the cold, dry place we know today. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, or MAVEN for short, is scheduled to lift off atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday at 1:28 p.m. EST (1828 GMT). After a 10-month cruise through deep space, MAVEN will start studying the Red Planet from orbit, seeking clues about how Mars lost most of its atmosphere in the ancient past. You can watch the launch live on SPACE.com via NASA TV beginning at 11 a.m. EST (1400 GMT).
| Read More » NASA Spacecraft to Watch 2 Comets Fly By Mercury This Week (Video)  | A NASA spacecraft orbiting Mercury will have a ringside seat when two comets zip by the tiny planet on Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 18 and 19). NASA's MESSENGER probe will watch as comets Encke and ISON cruise by on back-to-back days, providing "a golden opportunity to study two comets passing close to the sun," Ron Vervack of Johns Hopkins University, a MESSENGER science team member, said in a statement. NASA scientists explained the Mercury double-comet flyby in a video released Friday. "If you think of a comet as a dirty snowball, these are elements that make up the dirt.
| Read More » Mars orbiter aims to crack mystery of planet's lost water  | The prime suspect is the sun, which has been peeling away the planet's atmosphere, molecule by molecule, for billions of years. Exactly how that happens is the goal of NASA's new Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or MAVEN, which is scheduled for launch at 1:28 p.m. EST/1828 GMT on Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. "MAVEN is going to focus on trying to understand what the history of the atmosphere has been, how the climate has changed through time and how that has influenced the evolution of the surface and the potential habitability - at least by microbes - of Mars,' said lead scientist Bruce Jakosky, with the University of Colorado at Boulder. Scientists have glimpsed the process from data collected by Europe's Mars Express orbiter and NASA's Curiosity rover, but never had the opportunity to profile the atmosphere and space environment around Mars simultaneously.
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