As part of NASA’s outreach to get young students excited about space and science, nearly 100 seventh-graders at Kyrene Centennial Middle School met and chatted with astronauts this week during a live video call.

What was once an empty 15-acre lot at Indian School Road and Central Avenue is now filled with tractors tilling the land for farming and flexible outdoor classroom space for local schools. Once a former Phoenix Indian School is now PHX Renews, the largest transformation of vacant land into useable public space in the country.

Mayor Greg Stanton and City Manager David Cavazos announced that Phoenix has been selected as a finalist for the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, a competition created to inspire American cities to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life — and that ultimately can be shared with other cities across the nation.

FLAGSTAFF  — Uninspired by modern art, Kurt Wenner set out to learn how European masters made architecture soar and figures float in ceiling frescoes.

What would it take to explore an alien spacecraft at the bottom of a lake and rescue 20 abducted town folks before the National Guard steps in?

What would it take to explore an alien spacecraft at the bottom of a lake and rescue 20 abducted town folks before the National Guard steps in?

The Cassini spacecraft has been giving scientists information about Saturn and its moons for the past seven years. In that time much has been learned about the gaseous planet and its intriguing moons, such as Titan.

Editor's note: Ted Barber will sign his new book, "The Sixth Sun," from 4 to 7 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 22 in Chandler, at the home of his late brother, Tempe detective Tim Barber, 42, who died on Aug. 27 of advanced prostate cancer.

The end of the Space Shuttle program last month brought a nostalgic mood to my house. Generations of us were molded by the attainment of the impossible. My grandparents' generation experienced the first airplanes, jet travel, rockets orbiting the earth, humans walking on the moon, and landing a reusable spacecraft like an airplane. It seemed that as humans dreamed it, we did it.

The end of the Space Shuttle program last month brought a nostalgic mood to my house. Generations of us were molded by the attainment of the impossible. My grandparents' generation experienced the first airplanes, jet travel, rockets orbiting the earth, humans walking on the moon, and landing a reusable spacecraft like an airplane. It seemed that as humans dreamed it, we did it.

“In Plane View,” an exhibition of 56 large-format photographs by Carolyn Russo showcasing the aesthetic quality of some of the National Air and Space Museum’s iconic aircraft, will be on display Sept. 2 through Nov. 28 at Challenger Space Center Arizona, 21170 N. 83rd Ave., Peoria.

“In Plane View,” an exhibition of 56 large-format photographs by Carolyn Russo showcasing the aesthetic quality of some of the National Air and Space Museum’s iconic aircraft, will be on display Sept. 2 through Nov. 28 at Challenger Space Center Arizona, 21170 N. 83rd Ave., Peoria.

An instrument for spaceflight that will collect samples of organic material from an asteroid as part of a new NASA mission will be built at Arizona State University.

An East Valley engineer is looking for a foothold in the next space race.

Not many seventh-graders can say they have told NASA scientists where to position their spacecraft to send back images from space, but Maggie Fye, a Kyrene Centennial Middle School seventh-grader, did just that when she won NASA’s “Cassini Scientist for a Day” essay contest.