Less than half of the rodents, lizards, fish, and other small animals that were lofted skyward last month made it back alive, but nonetheless Russian researchers are calling their so-called "Space Ark" mission - the longest-duration space mission ever dedicated purely to biological study - a success. After spending a month in space, the Russian Bion-M landed slightly off-target but safely in a Russian field yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans for a new space initiative today. That includes shelling out more than $50 billion over the next seven years to complete the country's Vostochny cosmodrome, modernize rockets, and eventually send cosmonauts to the moon and even Mars.

Thanks to dozens of video reports, scientists are getting a pretty good handle on the life history of the massive meteorite that exploded above Russia earlier this month. They know it is rocky and a common type, and now they know where it probably came from. Scientists are scrambling to publish papers describing its origins in the middle of the solar system.

The giant space rock that exploded above Russia earlier this month spent about 4.5 billion years cruising around the solar system before its fiery arrival in Earth's atmosphere. It was just an average asteroid, albeit a big one at roughly 10,000 tons. Scientists who have been analyzing it at the Urals Federal University say it was a chondrite, the most widespread space rock in our neighborhood.

Hours after dashcams in Russia recorded a fiery, 50-foot-wide meteor hurtling through Earth's atmosphere, astronomers at the Observatorio del Teide in the Canary Islands captured this relatively peaceful video of asteroid 2012 DA14 as it streaked past Earth at a distance of about 17,000 miles. Compared to the Russian meteorite, 17,000 may seem like a lot of miles - the meteor exploded at a height of about 15 miles - but, as NASA points out, the 150-foot-wide asteroid passed within the orbits of both our moon and geosynchronous satellites.

As updates roll in from Russia and the meteorite-related injury toll rises, you may be scrambling to remember what a meteorite really is. If you're a little rusty on your astronomy, here's some basic info about space rocks and why this one was unusual.