A Sky Show on the Night After Christmas
T’was the Night after Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring … …because everyone was outside watching the planets align? It’s true.…
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Cassini Mission Delivers Holiday Treats From Saturn
No team of reindeer, but radio signals flying clear across the solar system from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have delivered a holiday package of glorious images. The…
Read the article →ISS Commander Dan Burbank Captures Unprecedented View of Comet Lovejoy
International Space Station Commander Dan Burbank captured spectacular imagery of Comet Lovejoy, viewed from about 240 miles above the Earth’s horizon on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Today…
Read the article →Kepler Mission Discovers First Earth-Size Planets Beyond Our Solar System
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close…
Read the article →Don’t Forget the Total Lunar Eclipse Today!
Sky watchers on the Pacific side of Earth should be alert for a total lunar eclipse today. The disk of the full Moon will turn a…
Read the article →Is Vesta the Smallest Planet in the Solar System?
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft spent the last four years voyaging to asteroid Vesta – and may have found a planet. Vesta was discovered over two hundred years…
Read the article →World’s Largest Radio Telescope Begins Observations
RadioAstron, effectively the largest radio telescope ever built, is up and running. The telescope’s main component, a 10-metre radio dish aboard the spacecraft Spectr-R, launched in…
Read the article →Opportunity Mars Rover Finds Mineral Vein Deposited by Water
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of…
Read the article →ESA Gaia Star Mapper Spreads Its Wings
ESA’s Gaia star-mapper has passed a critical test ahead of its launch in 2013: the spacecraft’s sunshield has been deployed for the first time. Gaia’s sunshield…
Read the article →Reliving the 1882 Transit of Venus Which Gave Us the Astronomical Unit
Nearly 130 years ago , the premier event in astrophysics involved watching a tiny dot slowly sail across the surface of the sun. That dot was…
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