NASA

The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero.

Engineers at Nasa's mission control in California erupted with joy when confirmation of touchdown came through.

The six-wheeled vehicle will now spend at least the next two years drilling into the local rocks, looking for evidence of past life.

Jezero is thought to have held a giant lake billions of years ago. And where there's been water, there's the possibility there might also have been life.

Their Dragon capsule - supplied and operated by the private SpaceX company - attached to the bow section of the orbiting lab 422km above China.

After a wait for leak, pressure and temperature checks, the pair disembarked to join the Russian and American crew already on the ISS.

Hurley and Behnken launched from Florida on Saturday.

Theirs is the first crew outing launched from American soil since the retirement of the US space agency (Nasa) shuttles nine years ago.

Nasa is working with Cruise to film aboard the International Space Station.

There are no details of the film, but Deadline - which first reported the story - said it would not be a new instalment of Mission: Impossible.

The report also said Cruise, 57, is also working with Elon Musk's SpaceX, which will transport two US astronauts to the ISS for Nasa later this month.

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote on Twitter: "Nasa is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the Space Station!"

Musk replied to say the project "should be a lot of fun!"

A new picture returned from Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft shows the little world to be two objects joined together - to give a look like a "snowman".

The US probe's images acquired as it approached Ultima hinted at the possibility of a double body, but the first detailed picture from Tuesday's close flyby confirms it.

New Horizons encountered Ultima 6.5 billion km from Earth.

The event set a record for the most distant ever exploration of a Solar System object. The previous mark was also set by New Horizons when it flew past the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015.

The probe has detected traces of molecular hydrogen (H₂) in icy plumes spewing from fissures on the surface of Enceladus.

The discovery, reported today in the journal Science, indicates the Saturnian moon's oceans contain conditions critical to fuelling life.

Study co-author Hunter Waite, the program director of mass spectrometry studies at the South West Research Institute, said the implications of finding hydrogen were "pretty amazing".

So despite an overly calculated feel, the numbers add up in favor of this uplifting film, which celebrates America's pioneer spirit during the space race while delving into that era's shameful aspects vis-à-vis race and gender.

"Hidden Figures" is periodically guilty of a sort of thudding earnestness, as well as emotional manipulation. Still, with its top-flight cast and absorbing historical foundation, the movie doesn't just chronicle when America began reaching for the stars, but sporadically achieves cinematic liftoff.

Shane Kimbrough, a NASA astronaut currently living on board the International Space Station, filed his ballot in last week's presidential election, according to a Tumblr post by NASA.

NASA told Yahoo News that Kimbrough filed his ballot in the 2016 election from the space station sometime over the past few days.

The academic staff met with the UPNG vice chancellor Professor Albert Mellam to air their grievances on outstanding issues relating to their welfare.

These include housing, security, the revise calendar and their outstanding 7.5 percent payment.

NASA president Emmanuel Gorea said they are pleased in the sense of collaborating together and working together with the administration.

However, Gorea said they’re not happy with the outcome and response from the administration.

Astronomers can currently detect planets outside our solar system through indirect methods like observing the changes in light from the distant stars when its planet passes across it. They have been doing this for more than 15 years, but unfortunately have not documented clear pictures of any exoplanets.

Firstly, even the closest star is several light years away. So when the astronomers observe these stars from an astronomical distance, their orbiting planets appear very close to the star. That defect disables the telescope from detecting them.

The probe will take a sample of the asteroid and -- in a US space first -- bring the sample back to Earth.

"NASA did it again!" Jim Green, Planetary Science Division director at NASA, said at a post-launch briefing.

"Tonight is a night for celebration," said Ellen Stofan, NASA chief scientist. "We are on our way to an asteroid."