Watch a live event from ESA’s European Space Operations Centre on 6 August when Mars Express tracks the arrival of NASA’s Curiosity rover at the Red Planet. Webcast runs 06:30 to 08:30 CEST.

Watch live streaming video from eurospaceagency at livestream.com

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Welcome

Space Exploration and Astronomy News

Welcome to the Night Sky Observer (NSO) space and astronomy news website. Most pages (especially news, podcasts and vodcasts) are updated several times a day.

There are many resources, news sources, articles, astro-photos and links on this site and the navigation bar (at top and at right) will let you navigate around …

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NASA’s newest Mars mission, landing in two days, will draw on support from missions sent to Mars years ago and will contribute to missions envisioned for future decades.


This graphic shows the locations of the cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover. The rover’s mast features seven cameras: the Remote Micro Imager, part of the Chemistry and Camera suite; four black-and-white Navigation …

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Get the latest scoop on NASA’s new Mars rover, Curiosity, with this live show from the Slooh Space Camera collaboration.

The first in a three-part series over the coming days, the show features Robert Manning, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program chief engineer, giving a behind-the-scenes tour at JPL, where the rover was built. Manning will join Slooh’s Patrick Paolucci and …

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When Curiosity enters the Martian atmosphere on August 6th, setting in motion “the seven minutes of terror” that people around the world have anticipated since launch a year ago, the intrepid rover will actually be performing the mission’s second daredevil stunt.

The first was completed in July.


Curiosity traveled to Mars in the belly of a space capsule akin to …

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On August 5th at 10:31 p.m. Pacific Time (6:31 am August 6th, BST), NASA will gently deposit their new, 2000-pound Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars, wheels-first and ready to roll. Quite a feat – because it will come screaming through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph.

Curiosity, aka the Mars Science Laboratory, will be the largest mission ever …

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As NASA prepares for next week’s Curiosity rover landing on Mars, William Shatner and Wil Wheaton share this thrilling story of NASA’s hardest planetary science mission to date. The video titled, “Grand Entrance,” guides viewers from entry through descent, and after landing.

The video will be used at events around the country and shared on the web and social media. …

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers this delightful view of the crowded stellar encampment called Messier 68, a spherical, star-filled region of space known as a globular cluster.


Messier 68 is located about 33 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra (The Female Water Snake). French astronomer Charles Messier notched the object as the 68th entry in his famous …

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Mars

Every time NASA lands a rover on Mars – or even makes the attempt – it is cause for celebration. On August 5th, the heavens themselves are aligning to mark the event.

Only a few hours before the Mars Science Lab spacecraft reaches the red planet and drops Curiosity on a hair-raising descent mission planners have dubbed the “seven minutes …

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The Sun

New sunspot AR1532 is crackling with M-class solar flares, including a brief but intense M6-flare on July 28th. A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by Saturday’s M6-class flare is heading toward Earth. According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud could deliver a glancing blow to our planet’s magnetic field on July 31st around 1500 UT (+/- …

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