(AP) -- James Doohan, Scotty from "Star Trek," spent his acting career whizzing through the cosmos. Gordon Cooper was one of America's famous Mercury seven astronauts. And Bob Shrake spent his work life anonymously helping send NASA's high-tech spacecraft to other planets.

The ashes of James Doohan launched on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket today.

A Mercury-sized planet, about 1500 light years away seems to be smoldering to ash from the heat of its nearby hot orange star. Researchers at MIT and NASA found a long tail of debris, similar to a comet, revolving in sync with the planet's orbit.

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit took photos of star trails, terrestrial lights, airglow and auroras while aboard the International Space Station.

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit took photos of star trails, terrestrial lights, airglow and auroras while aboard the International Space Station.

Some supernovas are more violent than others. Studying SN2010JL mere weeks after its demise, the Chandra X-Ray telescope found a shockwave tearing through layers the star had previously puffed off.

The study of the "Demon star", Algol, made by a research group of the University of Helsinki, Finland, has received both scientific and public attention. The period of the brightness variation of this eclipsing binary star has been connected to good prognoses three millennia ago. This result has raised a ...

The image shows the star-forming region Cygnus-X.

Astronauts and cosmonauts trained for different scenarios on future manned spaceflights.

The constellation Virgo and its bright star Spica cover much of the southern night sky this week.