The Gaia space probe, launched in 2013, has mapped more than a billion stars in the Milky Way, vastly expanding the inventory of known stars in our galaxy, the European Space Agency said Wednesday.

Released to eagerly waiting astronomers around the world, the initial catalogue of 1.15 billion stars is "both the largest and the most accurate full-sky map ever produced," said French astronomer Francois Mignard, a member of the 450-strong Gaia consortium.

A suspected meteor triggered a flash of light and loud explosions in the skies over Cyprus before dawn on Friday, prompting hundreds of calls to police from alarmed residents.

There were no reports of casualties or damage from the phenomenon which was reported across a wide area of the south of the Mediterranean island between midnight and 1 am.

The US space agency on Thursday launched its first mission to collect dust from an asteroid, the kind of cosmic body that may have delivered life-giving materials to Earth billions of years ago.

The unmanned spacecraft, known as OSIRIS-REx, blasted off at 7:05 pm (23:05 GMT) atop an Atlas V rocket in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

As Hermine worked its way up the East Coast, scientists deployed several underwater drones they say will help them better understand what sustains and strengthens hurricanes and tropical storms — and ultimately better protect life and property.

The ocean gliders, as they are called, resemble yellow-winged torpedoes. They were released into the ocean roughly 100 miles offshore at the continental shelf, where at depths of 100 to 300 feet they measured water temperatures, salinity and density before, during and even after the storm.

Scientific techniques that can wipe out invasive species or alter mosquitoes' ability to carry disease are pushing ahead, raising concerns about the ethics of permanently changing the natural world, experts say.

This fast-moving field of science -- which involves changing the biology of creatures by interfering with their DNA -- is increasingly being debated not only for human health purposes, but also in conservation circles. 

Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has finally spotted its tiny lander Philae, thought to be lost forever, stuck in a ditch on the surface of a comet hurtling through space, ground controllers said Monday.

A decade ago, there were just 115 western gray whales left in the world, and their feeding grounds near Russia's Sakhalin Island, north of Japan, were being drilled for oil. 

An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad during a test in Florida on Thursday, destroying a satellite that Facebook planned to use to beam high-speed internet to Africa.

The blast at Cape Canaveral -- though it caused no injuries -- marks a setback for the California-based private space firm and its founder, internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, who wants to revolutionize the launch industry by making rocket components reusable.

Two U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station began a spacewalk Thursday to make repairs and install new equipment.

Americans Jeff Williams, 58, and Kate Rubins, 37, emerged from the ISS at 1153 GMT for a mission expected to last about six and a half hours.

Life on Earth is even older than we thought, Australian scientists said Thursday as they unveiled fossils dating back a staggering 3.7 billion years.