Most of the important archaeological sites in Central America were "discovered" by archaeologists who, in fact, didn't discover them at all but were led to the ruins by local people. I've known several Maya archaeologists who routinely started fieldwork in a new area by heading into a dive bar and hoisting beers with the locals while listening to various bullshitters spin tales about ruins they'd seen in the jungle; once in a while, a story would turn out to be true. But, because these sites were long known to local people, they had invariably been disturbed, if not badly looted. The revelation of an ancient city in a valley in the Mosquitia mountains, of Honduras, one of the last scientifically unexplored regions on Earth, was a different story. This was the first time a large archaeological site had been discovered in a purely speculative search using a technology called LIDAR, or "light detection and ranging," which can map terrain through the thickest jungle foliage, an event I chronicled in a story for the magazine in 2013.

A number of high-profile missions lifted off, others reached their destinations after long journeys through deep space, and a few, sadly, crashed and burned. Some of the most exciting spaceflight action of 2016 involved rockets coming down rather than going up. California-based company SpaceX managed to land the first stage of five different Falcon 9 rockets during operational orbital launches this year; one of the boosters touched down back at the launch pad, whereas the other four landed on robotic "drone ships" stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. And the Washington-based company Blue Origin launched and landed the same suborbital New Shepard rocket four times this year, finally retiring the booster after a successful October test flight . Both SpaceX and Blue Origin -- which are headed by billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively -- aim to develop fully reusable rockets as a way to slash the cost of spaceflight and open up the heavens to exploration.

MOSCOW – Search teams on Wednesday recovered another flight recorder from a military plane that crashed in the Black Sea, killing all 92 aboard, the Defense Ministry said. The first flight recorder was found the previous day and experts have started analyzing its data to determine the cause of the crash. The Tu-154 of the Russian Defense Ministry crashed into the sea early Sunday, two minutes after taking off in good weather from the city of Sochi. It was carrying members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, widely known as the Red Army Choir, to a New Year's concert at a Russian military base in Syria. The Defense Ministry said 15 bodies and 239 body fragments have been recovered from the crash site. It previously said 17 bodies had been found.

You might not expect an oceanographer to be high on NASA's speed dial, but when the space agency needed help mounting a mission to Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa, it called one: Chris German. Ever since the geochemist found hydrothermal vents teeming with life in the Atlantic Ocean in 1997, he's been an Indiana Jones in the search for vents, creatures, and the origins of life. A senior scientist at Woods Hole, German was among the first to use programmable underwater robots to explore the seafloor. The skill to operate them in difficult conditions--15,000 feet deep and under 10-foot-thick ice--is what NASA likes about him. Last September, they teamed up for a two-month Arctic expedition, a dry run for what NASA might one day try on Europa.

Back in April, Stanford University professor Oussama Khatib led a team of researchers on an underwater archaeological expedition, 30 kilometers off the southern coast of France, to La Lune, King Louis XIV's sunken 17th-century flagship. Rather than dive to the site of the wreck 100 meters below the surface, which is a very bad idea for almost everyone, Khatib's team brought along a custom-made humanoid submarine robot called Ocean One. In this month's issue of IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, the Stanford researchers describe in detail how they designed and built the robot, a hybrid between a humanoid and an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and also how they managed to send it down to the resting place of La Lune, where it used its three-fingered hands to retrieve a vase. Most ocean-ready ROVs are boxy little submarines that might have an arm on them if you're lucky, but they're not really designed for the kind of fine manipulation that underwater archaeology demands. You could send down a human diver instead, but once you get past about 40 meters, things start to get both complicated and dangerous.

Drone boats belonging to the U.S. Navy have begun learning to work together like a swarm with a shared hive mind. Two years ago, they would have individually reacted to possible threats by all swarming over like a chaotic group of kids learning to play soccer for the first time. Now the drone boats have showed that they can cooperate intelligently as a team to defend a harbor area against intruders. The U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) held its latest robot swarm demonstration in the lower Chesapeake Bay off the Virginia coast for about a month. Four drone boats showed off their improved control and navigation software by patrolling an area of 4 nautical miles by 4 nautical miles. If they spotted a possible threat, the swarm of roboboats would collectively decide which of them would go track and trail the intruder vessel.

A dwarf planet in our own solar system might once have supported life, scientists have said. Ceres, a mysterious rocky planet in the asteroid belt between Mars ad Jupiter, has a rich body of ice beneath its dark surface, according to scientists. The discoveries were reported in a pair of studies published in the journals Science and Nature Astronomy. The scientists behind them hope that they could help commercial endeavours to mine water and other resources from asteroids, and to send humans out beyond the moon. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter 3/30 Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later -- having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars 4/30 The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station.

While the US Navy's new state-of-the-art USS Zumwalt destroyer struggles to remain functional, the service branch's R&D department has been busy investigating cutting-edge tech at a much smaller scale. Back in October, the Office of Naval Research (OCR) demonstrated the harbor defense capabilities of a group of prototype small autonomous boats, aka "swarmbots," in Chesapeake Bay. The ONR used four rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB) -- think of the larger soldier-ferrying Zodiacs -- to show off the drone squad's ability to patrol, investigate approaching unknown crafts and relay that information back to a human supervisor. Using autonomous vehicles for dull yet important tasks such as harbor defense is cheaper than using human crews, especially since some of the drone tech used in the demo is off-the-shelf. The ONR's autonomous system, Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), was first demonstrated in RHIBs back in 2014, according to the department's press release.

Say hello to SUPERSIZE Tinder! Dating app launches on Apple... Shipwreck of the lost Schiedam is found AGAIN: Divers... Snapchat unveils a group messaging feature that lets up to... Get ready to'Waymo' a self-driving cab: Google creates new... Say hello to SUPERSIZE Tinder! Dating app launches on Apple... Shipwreck of the lost Schiedam is found AGAIN: Divers... Snapchat unveils a group messaging feature that lets up to... Get ready to'Waymo' a self-driving cab: Google creates new... Valley Stream Best Buy associates gift a teen with a Wii U Watch woman get dragged off jet by police in Detroit Syria: Footage emerges of Russian special forces'fighting ISIS' Trash is dumped on woman's door step after she fails to pay Horrifying moment woman is kicked down the stairs by stranger Documentary director attacked by gang of immigrants in Stockholm'I'm going to wing walk!' Schofield talks to Duke about wing walk'Scumbag unions': Chants outside Brighton rail station Hunters forced to shoot a wild bear dead as it charges towards them Lads post the rudest mannequin challenge from "Scottish party" Impressive fireball lights up Spain's Costa del Sol night sky'We talked about life': Trump and Kanye discuss surprise meet Syria: Footage emerges of Russian special forces'fighting ISIS' Trash is dumped on woman's door step after she fails to pay'We talked about life': Trump and Kanye discuss surprise meet Kanye West-wing: The Donald embraces his troubled'friend'... Democrats' all-out bid to smear Trump's victory as Clinton... It's not'he' and'she'. It's'ze': Oxford University union... Terminally-ill boy, five, dies in Santa Claus' arms after... EXCLUSIVE: Angelina demands Brad Pitt be drug tested four... Trump's Iran stance could threaten a WORLD WAR and the... Shocking moment a woman was physically dragged off a Delta... Bride paralyzed at her bachelorette party opens up about sex... Best Buy employees in Long Island chip in to buy a $300 WiiU... Woman left with huge bill after Plenty of Fish date eats... Prince Harry and girlfriend Meghan Markle are'spotted... The Laughing Cavalier was a true gent and the two figures... Kanye West-wing: The Donald embraces his troubled'friend'... Terminally-ill boy, five, dies in Santa Claus' arms after... EXCLUSIVE: Angelina demands Brad Pitt be drug tested four... Trump's Iran stance could threaten a WORLD WAR and the... Shocking moment a woman was physically dragged off a Delta... Bride paralyzed at her bachelorette party opens up about sex... Best Buy employees in Long Island chip in to buy a $300 WiiU... Woman left with huge bill after Plenty of Fish date eats... Prince Harry and girlfriend Meghan Markle are'spotted...

An Atlas V rocket launched with NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:05 p.m. NASA video. SpaceX launched JCSAT-16 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and landed the first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. United Launch Alliance launched a Delta IV rocket at 12:52 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday, July 28, 2016 with a secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and landed it about eight minutes later.