Ah, kids. They're born, they do some cute stuff and then they become obnoxious teenagers.

In his budget for next year, President Obama will include $100 Million towards NASA "lasso-ing" a nearby asteroid, then exploring it. The money set aside will only cover the costs of planning the mission and identifying a correct asteroid (not too big, not too small), but the project has long been a goal for NASA administrators looking to learn more about how to mine (!) asteroids, as well as deflect them in case of a possible collision with Earth.

In what must have been like a total James Bond scenario, a NASA researcher at Langley named Bo Jiang was arrested on a plane bound for China as it pulled away from the gate at Dulles International Airport. No facts confirm that this was actually an action movie-worthy moment, but one can imagine.

Possibly not coincidental with the recent resurgence of David Bowie's musical stylings, scientists have discovered a possibility of life on Mars. OH WOW WHAT DID THE ALIENS LOOK LIKE AND DID THEY HAVE LITTLE SHELTERS AND WERE THERE COOL PLANTS?

Scientists have just discovered a tiny planet, a little planet, the li'lest planet, warm as toast, smaller than most, with a hot, rocky coast, circling a star far, far away.

According to a NASA press release, the space program governing body lost communication with the International Space Station this morning around 9:45 AM EST. While the situation sounds frightening, NASA made sure to note that the communication breakdown happened during a routine onboard software update, and that the flight crew was able to make contact with Mission Control Houston when the station flew over Russian ground stations before 11:00 AM EST:

All the scientists are quite confident that asteroid 2012 DA14 is going to miss us when it comes by at 2:25 Eastern time. It is not all going to come burning through our atmosphere with the force of umpty many hydrogen bombs, burying whole taxa in iridium and ash, reducing human civilization to a concentrated smear of silicon and copper for far-future sentient descendants of lobsters to mull over as they drill down into old rock, seeking whatever mineral resources the industries of the lobster-people will depend on. Definitely not. It is not even big enough accomplish that, really, even if it did hit us. The appointed minute will come and 2012 DA14 will almost certainly swing harmlessly past our planet, right under our communications satellites, and back out into the interplanetary void till its next pass.

After a meteorite crashed into Russia early this morning, you may have thought we'd reached our terrifying, Deep Impact-esque space shit quota for the week. Well, you'd be wrong because an asteroid is set to bypass the Earth today.

Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, Chinese doomsday cult members, and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard have all confirmed that the world will end this Friday just as the Maya predicted several millennia ago, but NASA continues to insist that it won't.

NASA has just released some nighttime images of Earth taken by an ultra-sensitive satellite 512 miles above its surface and They. Are. Gorgeous.

For most of us, December 21st, 2012, will pass by without incident.

Because space is just amazing, astronomers in Hawaii announced today that they've found a planet 170 light-years away from Earth that is more than thirteen times larger than the largest planet in our solar system (that's Jupiter, for those of you just tuning in). They've also managed to take a photo of its surface, which is a fairly rare occurrence, and the rest of us get to benefit from living in the really tremendous kind of era where anyone can just look at photographs taken in outer space over lunch at our desks.

NASA is reportedly planning to send Americans on a run back to the moon. Email NASA if you need anything from the moon.

Scientists today have discovered a planet in a nearby solar system that is twice the size of planet Earth, made almost entirely out of diamond, and not at all useful to you or me.

While you were busy mourning Neil Armstrong, Fox News analyst Monica Crowley was looking for a way to politicize his death.

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, has died at 82.

It's clear, by now, that the most interesting thing about NASA's Mars Exploration Program is not Mars itself, which appears to consist chiefly of boring dust mountains and nothing else, but the Curiosity Rover sent there to document it.

A galaxy 5.7 billion light years away from Earth has been having so many star babies that the Associated Press deemed it a 'cosmic supermom.' This space mom galaxy, which doesn't have an official name (commenters, do your worst), 'births' 740 stars a year, compared to the Milky Way's very prudish one a year. The rapid creation of stars has scientists baffled.

Here's the first color photo from Curiosity, the two-billion dollar NASA robot that landed on Mars yesterday. What a crock of shit. This is the first color photo of Mars we're getting? An Instagram of a mountain? Is Curiosity taking photos with a RAZR? This is the worst photo I've ever seen. Fire everyone at NASA. [NASA]

For years, the only thing keeping Earth from jettisoning all of its vegan inhabitants into outer space has been vegans' persistent whine, "I can't go there. They don't have anything vegan."