Tiny tubes in Canadian rock may be oldest known fossils

Tiny tubes and filaments in some Canadian rock appear to be the oldest known fossils, giving new support to some ideas about how life began, a new study says.

The features are mineralized remains of what appear to be bacteria that lived some 3.77 billion to 4.28 billion years ago, the scientists said. That would surpass the 3.7 billion years assigned to some other rock features found in Greenland, which were proposed to be fossils last August.

7 Earth-size worlds found orbiting star; could hold life

For the first time, astronomers have discovered seven Earth-size planets orbiting a single nearby star — and these new worlds could hold life.

This cluster of planets is less than 40 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, according to NASA and the Belgian-led research team who announced the discovery Wednesday.

Little Mercury a black dot as it crosses vast face of sun

For the first time in 10 years, Mercury passed directly between the Earth and sun on Monday, resembling a black dot against the vast, glowing face of our star.

Many stargazers turned to the Internet as NASA provided close-to-real-time images of the 7½-hour trek, courtesy of the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Although the solar system's small, innermost planet appeared to be trudging along, it actually was zooming past the sun at 106,000 mph.

Sunday marks 49 years since Lunar Orbiter 1 photo

The first ever photo of Earth taken from another world was snapped on Aug. 23, 1966. The photo was taken from the Lunar Orbiter One, which captured the image from near the surface of the moon 13 days after it was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.