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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.
 | Features in the jets’ structure provide clues about the final stages of a star’s birth, offering a peek at how the Sun behaved 4.5 billion years ago.
By Hubble ESA, Garching, Germany
Published: August 31, 2011 |
 | A team found that the proportion of metals in the star is more than 20,000 times smaller than that of the Sun.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: August 31, 2011 |
 | The results support the prevailing “cold dark matter” theory in which the evolution of structure in the universe is driven by the gravitational interactions of dark matter.
By University of California - Santa Cruz
Published: August 30, 2011 |
 | Analysis clearly shows that no correlation exists between changes in the turbulence in the solar wind and the direction of travel.
By University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom
Published: August 30, 2011 |
 | Ionized gas clouds largely residing in the Milky Way’s halo provide the ingredients to produce stars.
By University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Published: August 29, 2011 |
 | This flyby will help scientists improve color measurements of the moon, which will provide additional information about different materials on the satellite’s deeply pitted surface.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: August 29, 2011 |
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This week's news featured a brand new supernova, a black hole eating a star, new Mars vistas, a diamond exoplanet, the coldest class of stars, and more.
Published: August 26, 2011 |
 | Scientists believe that active spiral galaxy Speca is providing a look at how young galaxies and galaxy clusters evolved billions of years ago.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: August 26, 2011 |
 | Scientists predict this supernova will be a target for research for the next decade, making it one of the most-studied in history.
By Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
Published: August 26, 2011 |
 | Pulsar observations reveal that this planet was likely once a massive star in the millisecond pulsar binary system.
By Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany
Published: August 25, 2011 |
 | For the first time ever, scientists were able to observe such an extraordinary event the instant it happened.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 25, 2011 |
 | Having two white ovals at their cores, NGC 4435 and NGC 4438 make up the two peculiar galaxies known as “The Eyes.”
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: August 24, 2011 |
 | These six Y dwarfs, found within 40 light-years of the Sun, have the heat of a human body.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 24, 2011 |
 | This distant Kuiper Belt Object is one of the reddest celestial bodies in the solar system.
By California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Published: August 23, 2011 |
 | Opportunity is examining ejected material from a small crater named Odyssey.
By NASA/JPL
Published: August 23, 2011 |
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The innermost planet sparkles brightly just before dawn at the start of September.
By Bill Andrews
Published: August 23, 2011 |
 | Eruptions of the intense magnetic flux give rise to solar storms, but until now no one has had luck in predicting them.
By Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
Published: August 22, 2011 |
 | The data reveals never-before-seen structures of the solar wind as it impacts Earth.
By Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas
Published: August 22, 2011 |
 | Astronomers found that early planetary systems may be knocked around by crashes with nearby clumps of material.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: August 19, 2011 |
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This week's news featured a cosmic exclamation point, an arrowed cloud on Titan, a potentially younger Moon, protoplanetary system crashes, and more.
Published: August 19, 2011 |
 | Their mission is to determine the structure of the lunar interior and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the Moon.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 19, 2011 |
 | Using space measurement tools and a new data calculation technique, scientists detected no statistically significant expansion of the solid Earth.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: August 18, 2011 |
 | Elenin will pass about 22 million miles (35 million kilometers) from Earth during its closest approach.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: August 18, 2011 |
 | Researchers discover that Lyman-alpha blobs, gigantic primordial clouds of hydrogen, shine due to embedded galaxies within the structures.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: August 17, 2011 |
 | Analysis of lunar rock samples thought to be derived from original lunar magma has given scientists a new estimate of the Moon’s age.
By Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 17, 2011 |
 | The particle collider appears to have created slightly more events than would be expected if the Higgs boson doesn’t exist.
By California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Published: August 16, 2011 |
 | Atmospheric waves affect the moon's weather patterns, leading to a "stenciling" effect that results in sharp and sometimes surprising cloud shapes.
By University of California - Los Angeles
Published: August 16, 2011 |
 | Scientists are studying galaxies like VV340 to understand why they emit so much infrared radiation.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 15, 2011 |
 | This recently discovered planetary nebula consists of a bright ring dotted with dense, bright knots of gas that resemble diamonds in a necklace.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: August 12, 2011 |
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This week's news featured a new crater for a martian rover, DNA building blocks coming from space, a strong solar flare, a dark exoplanet, and more.
Published: August 12, 2011 |
 | TrES-2b lacks reflective clouds due to its high temperature.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: August 12, 2011 |
 | This data marks the official start of Dawn’s first science-collecting orbit phase at Vesta.
By NASA/JPL
Published: August 12, 2011 |
 | Graphene is a flat sheet of carbon atoms, one atom thick, that has extraordinary strength, conductivity, elasticity, and thinness.
By NOAO, Tucson, Arizona
Published: August 11, 2011 |
 | At Endeavour Crater, Opportunity will sample rock that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observations indicate may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period.
By NASA/JPL, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 11, 2011 |
 | The most distinctive feature of NGC 3521 is its long spiral arms that are dotted with star-forming regions and interspersed with veins of dust.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: August 10, 2011 |
 | The gigantic bursts of radiation cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to harm humans on the ground, but they can upset the atmosphere and disrupt GPS and communications signals.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: August 10, 2011 |
 | Endeavour crater offers the setting for plenty of productive work by Opportunity.
By NASA/JPL
Published: August 9, 2011 |
 | The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: August 9, 2011 |
 | These transitional galaxies — from a younger to an older generation — are most frequently located within group environments.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: August 8, 2011 |
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Studies show that the North Polar Cap is covered by frozen water and carbon dioxide ice in winter and spring, but the carbon dioxide ice warms and evaporates into the atmosphere during the Red Planet’s summer.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: August 5, 2011 |
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This week's news featured water on Mars, oxygen in space, a cratered asteroid, a spacecraft's launch, and more.
Published: August 5, 2011 |
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Upon arrival at the gas giant in 5 years, the orbiter will probe beneath the planet’s obscuring cloud cover to learn more about its origins, structure, atmosphere, and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 5, 2011 |
 | Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 4, 2011 |
 | The Juno spacecraft is scheduled to lift off August 5 for a 5-year journey to Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: August 4, 2011 |
 | In a new study, scientists used computer simulations of an impact between the Moon and a smaller companion, which coated one side of the Moon with an extra layer of solid crust.
By University of California - Santa Cruz
Published: August 3, 2011 |
 | The European Southern Observatory’s infrared survey telescope is digging deep into dusty star-forming regions in the Milky Way’s disk.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: August 3, 2011 |
 | Scientists propose that oxygen is locked up in water ice that coats tiny dust grains.
By NASA/JPL
Published: August 2, 2011 |
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You don’t need any equipment to view this summer meteor shower, although a Full Moon will create some observing challenges.
By Liz Kruesi
Published: August 2, 2011 |
 | The first images from orbit show that a variety of processes were once at work on the asteroid’s surface.
By NASA/JPL
Published: August 2, 2011 |
 | Astronomers have confirmed that about 1,000 small, dim stars just outside the Milky Way constitute the darkest known galaxy, as well as a treasure-trove of ancient stars.
By W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: August 1, 2011 |
 | The array is now ready to begin its first science observations.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: August 1, 2011 |
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