|  India's Mars mission enters second stage; outpaces space rival China  | By Shyamantha Asokan NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's first mission to Mars left Earth's orbit in the early hours of Sunday, clearing a critical hurdle in its journey to the red planet and overtaking the recent efforts of rival Asian giant China. The success of the spacecraft, scheduled to orbit Mars by next September, would carry India into a small club of nations including the United States, Europe, and Russia, whose probes have orbited or landed on Mars. India's venture, called Mangalyaan, faces further hurdles still on its journey to Mars. "While Mangalyaan takes 1.2 billion dreams to Mars, we wish you sweet dreams!" India's space agency said in a tweet soon after the event, referring to the citizens of the world's second-most populous country.
| Read More » 'Zombie' comet ISON may be back from the dead  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A smaller, paler version of Comet ISON may have survived incineration in the sun's corona and may be brightening, scientists said on Friday. Since its discovery in September 2012, Comet ISON has been full of surprises. Conflicting pictures of the comet's future continued until Thursday when ISON apparently flew too close to the sun. Its long tail and nucleus seemingly vaporized in the solar furnace, dashing hopes of a naked-eye comet visible in Earth's skies in December.
| Read More » Ancient 'Ghostbuster Demon' Creatures Pooped Together  | Enormous herds of rhinolike animals turned parts of what is now Argentina into minefields of dung, new fossils reveal. These massive herbivores were dicynodonts, mammal-like reptiles that looked something like a cross between a rhinoceros and the demon dogs from "Ghostbusters." Argentine researchers have now found that these dicynodonts pooped in communal latrines, designated areas for depositing dung. "This is the only case of megaherbavore latrine and it's the oldest," found fossilized, said study researcher Lucas Fiorelli of the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia Tecnológica in La Rioja, Argentina. Fiorelli and his colleagues began excavating in northwest Argentina two years ago and quickly uncovered fossilized poop — known as coprolites — by the bucket load.
| Read More » China launches lunar probe carrying 'Jade Rabbit' moon buggy  | China launched its first ever extraterrestrial landing craft into orbit en route for the moon in the small hours of Monday, in a major milestone for its space program. The Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's southwestern Sichuan province at 1:30 a.m. (12.30 p.m. EDT). President Xi Jinping has said he wants China to establish itself as a space superpower, and the mission has inspired widespread pride in China's growing technological prowess. If all goes smoothly, the rover will conduct geological surveys and search for natural resources after the probe touches down on the moon in mid-December as China's first spacecraft to make a soft landing beyond Earth.
| Read More » National Zoo's Panda Cub Named Bao Bao  | The newest giant panda cub at the Smithsonian's National Zoo was named Bao Bao on Sunday (Dec. 1) in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Bao Bao, which means "treasure" or "precious," beat out four other Mandarin monikers, including: Combined this represents a sign of luck for panda cooperation between China and the U.S. During the naming ceremony, the success of the panda breeding program was praised by zoo officials, the Chinese ambassador and U.S. first lady Michelle Obama.
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