There's a strange side to one of the country's wealthiest citizens.

New Zealand is ready to join the space race, with Kiwi start-up Rocket Lab on the brink of launching a rocket to the moon.

Alien megastructure? Or natural mega-disaster? Astronomers have crunched the numbers and come up with a new explanation for the erratic flickering of a distant star. Indigestion.

The Moon may have formed through the merging of 20 smaller 'moonlets' following asteroid strikes on the young Earth, a new theory suggests.

A highrise-sized asteroid capable of exploding with the force of 700 megatons slipped quietly past the Earth yesterday, twice as close as the Moon. We didn't see it coming.

This is New Zealand from 400 kilometres above the earth.

Herald science reporter Jamie Morton talks to Stardome astronomer Dr Grant Christie about the stars we can see above us in the sky this summer.

This week a comet will be visible from Earth for the first time. In February another object is approaching, but Nasa can't work out what it is.

The newly formed Red Nova will burn so brightly in the constellation Cygnus that everyone will be able to see it.

Source: WSJ

Rare and brief bursts of cosmic radio waves have puzzled astronomers. Now the signals have finally been tied to a source.

The world could be set to end in October this year, when a giant mysterious planet collides with our own - according to a conspiracy theorist.

COMMENT: What will you do with the extra time added to today to get clocks in sync with the Earth's rotation?

A posterior tattoo canvas and erotic eggplant are among the site's oddest hits of 2016.

The Star Wars series featured a man-made planet called the Death Star which destroys other worlds with a giant laser.

Mythical planets, nearby Earth-like worlds and unprecedented missions to Jupiter and Saturn. We learned a lot about our universe in 2016.

New research from NASA suggests that liquid water once existed on Mars and the dwarf planet Ceres - important clues in the search for past or present life.

Mozart may enhance a man's performance in board games - while AC/DC may hinder their chances, according to new research.

It sounds like an idea that should remain firmly in the realm of Hollywood but NASA thinks one day we might need to nuke any Earth-bound asteroids to save humanity.

As 2016 draws to a close, the NZ Science Media Centre picked some of the biggest national and international science stories that made headlines

The Rocket Lab's first stage booster rocket has passed a trial putting the company closer to the test launch of its Electron vehicle

"The rocket's the easy part. It's people who really throw a monkey wrench into things."

There are an estimated one hundred million pieces of space junk floating around Earth.

Hollywood has long been fascinated with the idea of communicating with space aliens. But is it even possible? Or wise?

"They were glowing balls flying through the air."

The same question has been bothering Star Wars fans ever since the original film's release. There may finally be an answer.

Former senator John Glenn, an American war hero who went on to become the first astronaut to orbit the Earth, has passed away at the age of 95.

SpaceX is completing "the final steps necessary to safely and reliably return to flight".

Source: Virgin Galactic. More than two years after one of its spacecrafts crashed, killing the co-pilot, Virgin Galactic sent its SpaceShipTwo back in the air this weekend for its first "glide flight." Taking off from the Mojave Air and Space Port on Saturday morning, the spacecraft flew for about an hour tethered to the belly of its mothership, known as WhiteKnightTwo. Then pilots released the spacecraft, which did not fire its engines but glided safely down back to the ground.

WATCH: Virgin Galactic performs an unpowered "glide flight" of SpaceShipTwo before landing safely.