Vote Now! Best Space Stories of the Week - Feb. 26, 2012

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Astronaut Builds LEGO Space Station Inside Real-Life Space Station

NASA

It took more than 200 astronauts from 12 countries more than a dozen years to build the International Space Station (ISS). Satoshi Furukawa, an astronaut from Japan, matched that feat in just about two hours — and he did it all while aboard the orbiting outpost itself.It helped that his space station was made out of LEGO."It was a great opportunity for me to have built the LEGO space station," Furukawa, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) flight engineer, told collectSPACE.com in an interview after he returned to Earth. "I enjoyed building it." [Full Story]

NEXT: 4 Planets & Moon Dominate Weekend Night Sky

4 Planets & Moon Dominate Weekend Night Sky

Tommy Mosley

A cosmic team-up of planets and the thin crescent moon is dazzling skywatchers around the world this weekend, and the celestial sky show is just getting started.

The planets Venus and Jupiter dominate the western evening sky at sunset on Saturday and Sunday (Feb. 25 and 26), with the crescent moon hovering nearby. The planet Mercury joins the cosmic trio briefly just after sunset before slipping below the horizon.

The planet Mars is also making its own appearance in the evening sky, but rises in the east a few hours after sunset in its own solo celestial show. [Full Story]

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
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Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.