THE SCIENCE NEWS METRICS CAROL A. CHRISTIAN Space Telescope Science Institute Homewood Campus 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore MD 21218, USA carolc@stsci.edu AND GREG DAVIDSON Northrup Grumman Space and Technology One Space Park Drive Redondo Beach CA 90278, USA greg.davidson@ngc.com Abstract. Scientists, observatories, academic institutions and funding agen- cies persistently review the usefulness and productivity of investment in scientific research. The Science News Metrics was created over 10 years ago to review NASA’s performance in this arena. The metric has been useful for many years as one facet in measuring the scientific discovery productivity of NASA-funded missions. The metric is computed independently of the agency and has been compiled in a consistent manner. Examination of the metric yields year-by-year insight into NASA science successes in a world wide context. The metric has shown that NASA’s contribution to world- wide top science news stories has been approximately 5% overall with the Hubble Space Telescope dominating the performance. 1. Introduction The Office of Space Science (OSS) of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), recently absorbed into NASA’s Science Mis- sion Directorate, is responsible for developing a space science program with a primary objective to accomplish fundamental science. Ultimately, like many science organizations, NASA’s success is measured in part by the achievement of scientific insights relative to the cost. NASA OSS consid-