©REUTERS/Marcus R. Donner

The new 8-gigabyte Microsoft ZUNE in four colors (L) and the new 80-gigabyte ZUNE (R) model are displayed in Redmond, Washington, October 2, 2007.

The solar power industry could see "unlimited growth" potential when production costs drop to those of conventional energy sources in some 3-5 years time, a leading producer of solar energy equipment said on Wednesday.

Erik Thorsen, chief executive at Norway's Renewable Energy Corp, told Reuters that advances in production technology and solar cell efficiency were quickly slashing the cost of producing electricity from sunlight.

The gigantic nebula NGC 3603 hosts one of the most prominent, massive, young clusters in the Milky Way. Hubble has been observing this prime location for star formation studies.

©NASA/ESA/STScl/Aura (The Hubble Heritage Team)

This Hubble image shows the gigantic nebula NGC 3603 located in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way, about 20,000 light-years from the Solar System. NGC 3603 hosts one of the most prominent, massive, young clusters in the Milky Way. Hubble has been observing this prime location for star formation studies. The images show a young star cluster surrounded by a vast region of dust and gas. Most of the bright stars in the image are hot, blue stars. They produce ultraviolet radiation and violent winds that have formed an enormous cavity in the gas and dust surrounding the cluster.

©JAXA/NHK

The Earth taken by the onboard HDTV OF THE KAGUYA.

The European Space Agency said its Solar and Heliospheric Observatory has sighted -- for the first time -- the third passage of a specific comet.

The space observatory, called SOHO -- a joint ESA project with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- has found more than 1,350 comets. But this is the first time it's found a rare type of comet called a periodic comet -- meaning it flies by the sun at regular intervals. While many SOHO-discovered comets are believed to be periodic, this is the first that's been officially declared as such, the ESA said.

European Neanderthals, modern man's ill-fated cousins who died out mysteriously some 28,000 years ago, migrated much further east than previously thought, according to a study released Sunday.

©n/a

Visitors of the Museum for Prehistory in Eyzies-de-Tayac looking at a Neanderthal man ancestor's reconstruction, in 2004.

Moffet Field, California - Every now and then a space rock hits the world's media - sometimes almost literally. Threatening asteroids that zoom past the Earth, fireballs in the sky seen by hundreds of people and mysterious craters which may have been caused by impacting meteorites; all make ESA's planned mission Don Quijote look increasingly timely. Asteroid and comet impacts have played an important role in the history of life on Earth.

©NASA JPL

This is an artist's concept of an Earthlike planet around another star

Houston TX - NASA's blueprints for an outpost on the moon are shaping up. The agency's Lunar Architecture Team has been hard at work, looking at concepts for habitation, rovers, and space suits. NASA will return astronauts to the moon by 2020, using the Ares and Orion spacecraft already under development. Astronauts will set up a lunar outpost - possibly near a south pole site called Shackleton Crater - where they'll conduct scientific research, as well as test technologies and techniques for possible exploration of Mars and other destinations.

Goddard Space Flight Center - A NASA satellite has captured the first images of a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane. It is the first time scientists have witnessed such an event on another cosmic body. One of NASA's pair of Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, known as STEREO, recorded the event April 20.

©NASA

This is a still taken from a visualization showing Comet Encke and the coronal mass ejection erupting from the surface of the Sun.