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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.
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In the past seven days, Cassini found a likely subsurface ocean on Saturn's moon Titan, astronomers witnessed an exoplanet’s atmosphere give off a powerful burst of
evaporation just after a violent flare on its parent star bathed it in intense X-ray
radiation, researchers discovered a point-like X-ray source racing away from
the center of a supernova remnant at millions of miles per hour, and more.
Published: June 29, 2012 |
 | Data show that Saturn creates solid tides approximately 30 feet (10 meters) in height, which suggests Titan is not made entirely of solid rocky material.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 29, 2012 |
 | Researchers have discovered a point-like X-ray source racing away from the center of a supernova remnant at millions of miles per hour.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Published: June 29, 2012 |
 | Focusing on the chemistry of rocks embedded in martian crater walls, rims, and central uplifts, scientists identified 175 sites bearing minerals formed in the presence of water.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: June 28, 2012 |
 | Just after a violent flare on its parent star bathed it in intense X-ray radiation, the planet’s atmosphere gave off a powerful burst of evaporation.
By Hubble ESA, Garching, Germany
Published: June 28, 2012 |
 | By tracing the changes in the planet’s motion as it orbits its star, scientists have determined reliably for the first time that Tau Boötis b orbits its host star at an angle of 44°, has a mass six times that of Jupiter, and temperatures that decrease with altitude.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: June 27, 2012 |
 | An analysis of the surprising arc revealed that the lensed object is a star-forming galaxy that existed 10 to 13 billion years ago.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: June 27, 2012 |
 | For the first time, scientists have a useful laboratory in which to search for and study bright stars of similar mass and age to the Sun.
By Penn State University, University Park
Published: June 26, 2012 |
 | In a new study, scientists used images collected over several years by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to discover that the heat from within the ringed planet powers the jet streams.
By Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 26, 2012 |
 | Scientists conclude that Arp 220 comes from a multiple merger that includes at least four galaxies, and they think this conclusion can be applied to other galaxy groups.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: June 25, 2012 |
 | Kovach is a seasoned magazine and newspaper editor who will bring a keen eye to the world's best-selling astronomy magazine.
By David J. Eicher
Published: June 25, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter returned data that ice may make up 22 percent of the surface
material in a crater on the Moon, Kepler observations revealed the closest planets to each other of any planetary system scientists have found, a study bolstered evidence that the growth of most massive black holes in the
early universe was fueled by small long-term events, and more.
Published: June 22, 2012 |
 | The solar system of Kepler-36 contains the two closest planets scientists have ever found.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: June 22, 2012 |
 | This sensor boasts 16 times the pixel count of an earlier sensor developed by the same team and installed on the Hubble Space Telescope during the astronauts’ last repair mission.
By University of Hawaii at Manoa's Institute for Astronomy, Honolulu
Published: June 22, 2012 |
 | The Euclid space telescope will be optimized to find out why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: June 21, 2012 |
 | In addition to the possible evidence of ice, the scientists’ map of Shackleton revealed a remarkably preserved crater that has remained relatively unscathed since its formation more than 3 billion years ago.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: June 21, 2012 |
 | Astronomers are uncovering an underlying population of fainter quasars in the distant universe that thrive in normal-looking spiral galaxies and are triggered by black holes consuming a batch of gas or the occasional small satellite galaxy.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 20, 2012 |
 | The view shows many hot young stars, glowing clouds of gas, and weird dust formations sculpted by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: June 20, 2012 |
 | In addition to finding the most distant galaxy, the team's research verified that the proportion of neutral hydrogen gas in the 750-million-year-old early universe was higher than it is today.
By NAOJ, Japan
Published: June 19, 2012 |
 | The data show that a type of particle decay happens more often than the leading description of how the universe works on subatomic scales says it should.
By the Science and Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom
Published: June 19, 2012 |
 | It was possible for scientists to adjust landing plans because of increased confidence in precision landing technology aboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 18, 2012 |
 | Frequent contributor Michael Carroll wins for his August 2011 Astronomy article, "Storm warning."
By Liz Kruesi
Published: June 18, 2012 |
 | Astronomers found that black holes do not necessarily come with two different engines, but that each black hole can run in two different regimes, like two gears of the same engine.
By Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Groningen
Published: June 18, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, NASA launched a new telescope to examine the X-ray sky, the Cassini spacecraft discovered a lake in the "tropics" of Saturn's moon Titan, scientists have uncovered two nearby galaxies with supermassive black holes that are growing faster than the galaxies themselves, and more.
Published: June 15, 2012 |
 | From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering, but recently, scientists have seen rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 15, 2012 |
 | Scientists had thought that Titan simply had extensive dunes at the equator and lakes at the poles, but now they know that Titan is more complex than previously thought.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 15, 2012 |
 | One planet is a massive, puffed-up oddity that could change ideas of how solar systems evolve, and the other orbits a bright star and will allow astronomers to make detailed measurements of the atmospheres of these bizarre worlds.
By Ohio State University, Columbus
Published: June 14, 2012 |
 | NGC 3314A and 3314B might look like they are in the midst of a galactic pile-up, but they are in fact separated by tens of millions of light-years.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: June 14, 2012 |
 | Planets up to four times the size of Earth can form around stars with a wide range of heavy element content, including stars with a lower metallicity than the Sun.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California
Published: June 14, 2012 |
 | In addition to black holes and their powerful jets, NuSTAR will study high-energy objects in our universe, including the remains of exploded stars, compact dead stars, and clusters of galaxies.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 13, 2012 |
 | Researchers were surprised when they realized that the distant galaxy HDF850.1 was the brightest source of submillimeter emission in the Hubble Deep Field by far, a galaxy that was evidently forming as many stars as all the other galaxies in the field combined.
By Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany
Published: June 13, 2012 |
 | These ultrafine loops and their wider cousins may help with the quest to determine how temperatures rise throughout our star’s upper atmosphere.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: June 13, 2012 |
 | Scientists believe that recently discovered hydrogen gas streaming between the Andromeda and Pinwheel galaxies is the remnant of a tidal tail that originated during a close encounter.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: June 12, 2012 |
 | A new study has revealed two nearby galaxies with supermassive black holes that are growing faster than the galaxies themselves.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 12, 2012 |
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The flare produced such an outpouring of gamma rays that the Sun briefly became the brightest object in the gamma-ray sky.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: June 11, 2012 |
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Previous estimates had predicted as many of these “failed” suns as typical stars, but the new initial tally from WISE shows just one brown dwarf for every six stars.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 11, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, scientists and spacecraft alike studied the last transit of Venus until 2117, astronomers discovered the faintest distant galaxy in the universe, observations suggested that a black hole collided and merged with another black hole and then got kicked out of its home galaxy, and more.
Published: June 8, 2012 |
 | Spitzer observations of the cosmic infrared background are laying down a roadmap for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will tell us exactly what and where these first objects were.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 8, 2012 |
 | Images of a remarkable crater show evidence that the planet underwent significant fluctuations in its climate due to changes in its rotation axis.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: June 8, 2012 |
 | Scientists chose the various colors to highlight differences in surface composition that are too subtle for the human eye to see.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 7, 2012 |
 | Researchers say the instrument, scheduled to launch June 13, represents a huge advance in what they will be able to see in space, as it will be the first spacecraft able to focus high-energy X-rays.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 7, 2012 |
 | The European Space Agency’s microsatellite Proba-2 tracked Venus as it moved across the solar disk over a period of nearly seven hours.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: June 6, 2012 |
 | The Herschel Space Observatory traced 650,000 Suns worth of gas and dust in this famous stellar nursery.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: June 6, 2012 |
 | The newfound galaxy secures a spot among top 10 most distant known objects in space.
By Arizona State University, Tempe
Published: June 5, 2012 |
 | New observations suggest that the black hole collided and merged with another black hole and received a powerful recoil kick from gravitational wave radiation.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 5, 2012 |
 | Astronomers have found a long-sought X-ray signal from the galaxy NGC 4151 that promises a new way to uncover what’s happening in a black hole’s neighborhood.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: June 4, 2012 |
 | Although its surface is hot enough to melt lead due to its greenhouse atmosphere, in many respects, Venus is Earth's twin.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 4, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, SpaceX completed a mission to bring cargo to the International Space Station, scientists discovered a gamma-ray beams extending from the Milky Way's center, the twin GRAIL spacecraft finished their primary lunar mission ahead of schedule, and more.
Published: June 1, 2012 |
 | Some Cassini scientists think they have observed "dusty plasma," a condition theorized but not previously observed, near Enceladus.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: June 1, 2012 |
 | The Hubble Space Telescope team conducted extraordinarily precise observations of the sideways motion of M31 that remove any doubt that it is destined to collide and merge with our galaxy.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: June 1, 2012 |
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