|
|
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.
 | Astronomers found tiny galaxies ferociously forming stars, the most advanced planetary rover safely touched down on Mars, physicists discovered a particle they’ve been seeking for 40 years, and more.
Published: December 28, 2012 |
 | Pulsars rotate at extremely stable speeds, but occasionally they speed up in brief events described as “glitches.” New research challenges current theories of what causes such glitches.
By University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Published: December 28, 2012 |
 |
Scientists compiled older observations of this supernova remnant into one of the largest astronomical images ever made.
By NOAO, Tucson, Arizona
Published: December 27, 2012 |
 |
Based on this data, cosmologists finally know precise values for the history, composition, and geometry of the cosmos.
By Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Maryland
Published: December 26, 2012 |
 |
In the past seven days, scientists discovered a potential habitable planet around the closest single Sun-like star to our solar system, the twin GRAIL spacecraft were crashed into the Moon after successfully mapping our satellite's gravity, Cassini captured a stunning image of Saturn backlit by the Sun, and more.
Published: December 21, 2012 |
 | A striking Hubble image of the planetary nebula NGC 5189 looks like a giant and brightly colored ribbon in space.
By Hubble ESA, Garching, Germany
Published: December 21, 2012 |
 | In the stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun, turbulence is thought to play a key part in maintaining its heat as it streams away and races across the solar system.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: December 21, 2012 |
 | One potential planet in the Tau Ceti system has a mass around five times that of Earth, making it the smallest planet found to be orbiting in the habitable zone of any Sun-like star.
By University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Published: December 20, 2012 |
 | The spacecraft has delivered another glorious backlit view of Saturn and its rings.
By Cassini Imaging Central Lab, Boulder, Colorado, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: December 20, 2012 |
 | In certain circumstances, stars can be given a new burst of life, receiving extra fuel that bulks them up and substantially brightens them.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: December 19, 2012 |
 | A new analysis suggests that at least 10 black holes in a sample of 18 galaxy clusters weigh between 10 and 40 billion times the mass of the Sun.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Published: December 19, 2012 |
 | The impact marked a successful end to NASA’s first planetary mission to carry cameras fully dedicated to education and public outreach.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 18, 2012 |
 | Researchers didn’t find high abundances of a radioactive isotope that would provide evidence for the presence of a supernova.
By University of Chicago, Illinois
Published: December 18, 2012 |
 | The radar images of asteroid Toutatis indicate that it is an elongated, irregularly shaped object with ridges and perhaps craters.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: December 17, 2012 |
 | These jets possess fundamental similarities regardless of a black hole’s mass, age, or environment.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: December 17, 2012 |
 | The GRAIL spacecraft will conduct one final engineering experiment that could help future missions operate more efficiently before crashing into a lunar mountain.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 14, 2012 |
 | A team of astronomers used the opportunity to look at the sunlight reflected off the Moon to see how it changed during the transit, a technique that could help scientists find planets in orbit around other stars.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: December 14, 2012 |
 |
In the past seven days, the astronomy community lost a great teacher in Sir Patrick Moore, the Hubble Space Telescope peered further back in time than ever before and uncovered a previously unseen population of primitive galaxies, astronomers found a microquasar in a galaxy beyond the Milky Way for the first time,
and
more.
Published: December 14, 2012 |
 | Scientists think that the river, which is in Titan’s north polar region, is filled with liquid hydrocarbons.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: December 13, 2012 |
 | The object, pumping out X-rays and bright bursts of radio waves, was discovered in the Andromeda Galaxy.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: December 13, 2012 |
 | The deepest images to date from the space telescope yield the first statistically robust sample of galaxies that tells how abundant they were close to the era when galaxies first formed.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 12, 2012 |
 | Researchers are sending Curiosity to the area to use its rock-powdering drill for the first time.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: December 12, 2012 |
 | Researchers studied the motions of newborn triple stars and concluded that the widest binary systems began as three stars, not just two.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 11, 2012 |
 | The new sensor is sensitive enough to detect the nocturnal glow produced by Earth’s atmosphere and the light from a single ship at sea.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: December 11, 2012 |
 | The WISE mission’s all-sky infrared maps have revealed one distant galaxy cluster and are expected to uncover thousands more.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: December 10, 2012 |
 | Charitum Montes is a large group of rugged mountains pockmarked with craters and dusted with bright carbon-dioxide frost.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: December 10, 2012 |
 |
The astronomy popularizer was synonymous with the wonders of the cosmos.
By Karri Ferron
Published: December 10, 2012 |
 |
In the past seven days, Curiosity's first analysis of martian soil revealed a complex chemistry within the soil, NASA probes orbiting Earth's Moon generated the highest-resolution gravity field map of any celestial body, astronomers discovered and "weighed" an infant solar system,
and
more.
Published: December 7, 2012 |
 | The rover has been investigating a site where observations from orbiting Mars spacecraft detected traces of clay minerals.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 7, 2012 |
 | Scientists are tackling this problem by studying the number of black holes in galaxies with different compositions.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Published: December 7, 2012 |
 | Data from the twin spacecraft show that our satellite’s gravity field is unlike that of any terrestrial planet in the solar system.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 6, 2012 |
 | Observations reveal extraordinarily high star-formation rates across the history of the universe.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: December 6, 2012 |
 | The star currently has about one-fifth the mass of the Sun, but according to scientists, it will likely eventually match the Sun’s mass.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: December 5, 2012 |
 | Nicknamed “green bean galaxies” because of their unusual appearance, these galaxies glow in intense light emitted from the surroundings of monster black holes that are now switching off.
By ESO, Garching, Germany, Canada-France-Hawaii Corp., Kamuela, Hawaii, Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: December 5, 2012 |
 | Scientists believe this is the final region the spacecraft has to cross before reaching interstellar space.
By Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Maryland
Published: December 4, 2012 |
 | This year's Geminid meteor shower promises observers lots of shooting stars.
By Michael E. Bakich
Published: December 4, 2012 |
 | Venus’ atmosphere contains more than a million times as much sulfur dioxide as Earth’s, where almost all of the toxic gas is generated by volcanic activity.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: December 4, 2012 |
 | The galaxy is one of the brightest extragalactic radio sources in the entire sky.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico, STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: December 3, 2012 |
 | Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances showed up in samples Curiosity delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: December 3, 2012 |
 | The discovery of millimeter-sized dust grains around a brown dwarf suggests that this disk is more similar to the ones around young stars than previously thought.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: December 3, 2012 |
|
 |
Look for this icon. This denotes premium subscriber content.
Learn more » |
Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly e-mail newsletter
|