A small NASA aircraft completed its first successful science flight Thursday as part of an expedition to study the receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover. The mission continues through July 24.

NASA released Thursday newly restored video from the July 20, 1969, live television broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The release commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first mission to land astronauts on the moon. The initial video release, part of a larger Apollo 11 moonwalk restoration project, features 15 key moments from the historic lunar excursion of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Matthew Deans: "For the past 10 days we have been making real time maps of all of the sub operations at Pavilion Lake. To do this, we have written some software to generate KML files to load into Google Earth. The Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames has a lot of experience with ground data systems for NASA missions like the MER rovers, robotic earth analog field tests like the Robotic Recon test in northern Arizona in June, disaster response applications, and the Gigapan camera system, we were able to put together a set of tools to support sub tracking and mapping using a lot of existing software. We call the collection of tools and processes the "Surface Data System." [More at Pavilion Lake Research Project]

Space shuttle Endeavour and its seven-member crew launched at 6:03 p.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will deliver the final segment to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory and a new crew member to the International Space Station.

A new study has revealed the origins of tiger stripes and a subsurface ocean on Enceladus- one of Saturn's many moons. These geological features are believed to be the result of the moon's unusual chemical composition and not a hot core, shedding light on the evolution of planets and guiding future space exploration.

Many of the objects found today in the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter may have formed in the outermost reaches of the solar system, according to an international team of astronomers led by scientists from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).