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Your online destination for news articles on planets, cosmology, NASA, space missions, and more. You’ll also find information on how to observe upcoming visible sky events such as meteor showers, solar and lunar eclipses, key planetary appearances, comets, and asteroids.
 | The February Eta Draconids appear to originate from a long-period comet that passes close to Earth’s orbit.
By SETI Institute, Mountain View, California
Published: July 29, 2011 |
 | Juno will arrive at Jupiter in July 2016 and orbit its poles to learn more about the gas giant’s interior, atmosphere, and aurora.
By NASA/JPL
Published: July 29, 2011 |
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This week's news featured a soccer ball-like planetary nebula, solar "spicules," a trio of galaxies, a new meteor shower, a martian crater, and more.
Published: July 29, 2011 |
 | Scientists say these magnetic field ripples could be the source of the corona’s intense heating and solar winds.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: July 28, 2011 |
 | Because Trojans constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never can collide with it.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 28, 2011 |
 | The VST is expected to further our understanding of dark matter, which is thought to be the largest constituent of the galactic halo.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 27, 2011 |
 | A large amount of previous data has shown material falling toward and onto black holes, but none with this clear of a signature of hot gas.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 27, 2011 |
 | Enceladus is the only moon in the solar system known to influence the chemical composition of its parent planet.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: July 26, 2011 |
 | Curiosity is scheduled to launch late this year and land in August 2012.
By NASA/JPL
Published: July 26, 2011 |
 | The environment around quasar APM 08279+5255 includes water vapor distributed in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light-years.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 25, 2011 |
 | The location of the new nebula, Kronberger 61, is within a relatively small patch of sky being intensely monitored by NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission.
By Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: July 25, 2011 |
 | The new age estimate is based on the presence of ultra-faint filaments in the distant outskirts of two galaxies.
By Canada-France-Hawaii Corp., Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: July 22, 2011 |
 | Research shows that aurorae on distant "hot Jupiters" could be much brighter than earthly displays.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: July 22, 2011 |
 | Observations made by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys give a close-up view of stars within M31.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: July 21, 2011 |
 | The Herschel Space Observatory’s view reveals the entire ring at the center of the Milky Way for the first time.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 21, 2011 |
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Since its first launch, 355 individuals from 16 countries flew 852 times aboard the shuttle, hosting more than 2,000 experiments in the fields of Earth, astronomy, biological, and materials sciences.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 21, 2011 |
 | Winds from bright young stars and shock waves from supernovae explosions are carving out this vast shell of material.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 20, 2011 |
 | The tiny new satellite, temporarily designated P4, is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 20, 2011 |
 | Scientists found that the Large Magellanic Cloud contains stars taken from the Small Magellanic Cloud.
By NOAO, Tucson, Arizona
Published: July 19, 2011 |
 | Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 19, 2011 |
 | Dawn’s study of Vesta marks a major scientific accomplishment and also points the way to future destinations.
By NASA/JPL
Published: July 18, 2011 |
 | Observations will help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 15, 2011 |
 | The mission will involve observations of the lunar surface, its magnetic field, and the surrounding magnetic environment.
By University of California, Berkeley
Published: July 15, 2011 |
 | The two new neighbors attracted attention by the contrast between their strong brightness in the infrared and their almost invisible appearance in optical light.
By Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam, Germany
Published: July 14, 2011 |
 | Simulations improve the characterization of cosmology’s “standard ruler.”
By Ohio State University, Columbus
Published: July 14, 2011 |
 | By watching the stars converge, scientists will test both Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the origin of some peculiar supernovae.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: July 13, 2011 |
 | New data shows that mergers between galaxies did not trigger the majority of the more common, less bright active galaxies in the universe.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 13, 2011 |
 | The Robotic Refueling Mission, which will test tools, technologies, and techniques that could be used to robotically refuel and repair satellites in space, will be docked to a platform by the spacewalkers.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 12, 2011 |
 | The planet plods along in its huge orbit, slowly completing one revolution approximately every 165 years.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: July 12, 2011 |
| Engineers were able to return the Vesta-bound spacecraft to a normal configuration after an electronic circuit failure and restart its thrusting.
By NASA/JPL
Published: July 11, 2011 |
 | The mission will deliver supplies and space parts to sustain International Space Station operations after the shuttle’s are retired.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 8, 2011 |
 | Supernovae are the answer to what supplied our early universe with dust.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 8, 2011 |
 | Weather on Saturn appears to hum along placidly for years and then erupts violently.
By Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, NASA/JPL
Published: July 7, 2011 |
 | The new detection of this molecule will help astronomers better understand the formation of water in the universe.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 6, 2011 |
 | The orbiting observatory is analyzing the chemical composition of Kepler 2b’s atmosphere.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 6, 2011 |
 | Scientists find evidence for a mechanism of galaxy growth in which a typical galaxy feeds itself through a steady stream of gas, making stars at a much faster rate than previously thought.
By NASA/JPL
Published: July 5, 2011 |
 | Type Ia supernovae leave behind dead stars with a core of ash, but they can come back to life by sucking matter from a companion star.
By University of California, Santa Barbara
Published: July 5, 2011 |
 | Measurements used to weigh galaxy clusters carried out in three different wavelengths are giving rise to significantly different results.
By Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
Published: July 1, 2011 |
 | The gamma-ray observatory has placed stringent new limits on the size of quantum “grains” in space, ruling out some quantum loop gravity theories.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: July 1, 2011 |
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