Recovery team finds shuttle nose cone

A recovery team in Texas has found the nose cone of the space shuttle Columbia after it crashed to Earth on Saturday.

All seven astronauts on board were killed when the craft broke up at about 200,000ft, spreading debris for hundreds of miles.

The nose cone, which was described as "reasonably intact", was discovered buried deep in the ground near the Louisiana border.

A crew was to return to the site, about three miles west of Hemphill, later today to excavate it.

By late yesterday, about 12,000 pieces of debris had been collected.