India is aiming to join the world's deep-space pioneers with a journey to Mars that it hopes will showcase its technological ability to explore the solar system while seeking solutions for everyday problems on Earth.

With a Tuesday launch planned for Mangalyaan, which means "Mars craft" in Hindi, India will attempt to become only the fourth country or group of countries to reach the Red Planet, after the Soviet Union, United States and Europe.

A deep sea oyster reef restoration being touted as the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico began in an unlikely place: a quarry in landlocked Missouri.

That is where years of research, planning and precise engineering led Mark Dumesnil, an associate director of restoration for the Nature Conservancy in Texas, as he sought to restore what was once a nearly 500-acre oyster reef and is now no more than hard sand and shell remains, with not one oyster in sight.

Europe's heaviest-ever cargo carrier to the International Space Station burned up in Earth's atmosphere Saturday in a controlled maneuver after a five-month mission, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

Filled with about six tonnes of garbage and waste produced on board the ISS, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) met its fiery end over an uninhabited zone of the southern Pacific Ocean at 1204 GMT, it said in a statement.

New Zealand said it remained optimistic Saturday about the creation of a sanctuary to protect Antarctica's ocean wilderness, despite the failure of multi-national talks to agree the plan.

While voicing disappointment, New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said that consensus was building after proposals for two huge marine protection zones were knocked back at a meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Toxic algae blooms that deplete the water of essential oxygen are killing a record number of manatees in Florida this year, biologists say.

A total of 769 manatees have died trough Tuesday, making 2013 the deadliest year ever for the blubbery denizens of the deep found off the Florida coast, Save the Manatee Club announced.

The nations that make decisions about Antarctic fishing have failed for a third time to agree on a plan to create the world's largest marine sanctuary.

The U.S. and New Zealand had proposed creating a reserve in the pristine waters of the Ross Sea. At 1.34 million square kilometers (517,000 square miles), it would have been twice the size of Texas.

A rare solar eclipse will sweep across parts of Africa, Europe and the United States on Sunday as the moon blocks the sun either fully or partially, depending on the location.

The round shape of the Earth explains why some viewers in west Africa will see a total eclipse, while others in the United States and Europe will only see the sun partly obscured.

The coldest place in the universe -- just one degree above absolute zero, the temperatures at which all atoms freeze -- is the Boomerang Nebula, astronomers in Chile said Wednesday.

It is about 5,000 light years away in the Centaurus constellation, the scientists at the ALMA observatory said.

Five large cannons from a sunken ship captained by the legendary pirate Blackbeard have been recovered by U.S. archeologists, authorities said Wednesday.

The cannons were raised from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, sunk off the coast of North Carolina, on Monday, state officials said.

Beirut Green Project, Lebanese Collective with a mission to promote and support public green spaces in Beirut, and WonderEight, Lebanese branding and interactive agency, announced the launch of Beirut Green Guide (BGG), an interactive map which highlights all public parks in Beirut and gives an overview of each, a press release said on Thursday.

The idea for the green guide was initiated in "Beirut Meets Hamburg", a workshop organized by BGP that brought together German and Lebanese students with the goal of coming up with creative solutions to the lack of green spaces in Beirut, the release added.