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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 new observatory lets astronomers see through the opaque dust lanes that obscure the galaxy’s center with unprecedented quality.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: May 31, 2012 |
 | By studying white dwarfs in our galaxy’s halo, astronomers reinforced the view that this area of the Milky Way is composed of a layer-cake structure that formed in stages over billions of years.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: May 31, 2012 |
 | The GRAIL mission has gathered unprecedented detail about the internal structure and evolution of the Moon.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 30, 2012 |
 | New evidence of gamma-ray beams suggests that the Milky Way's central black hole was much more active in the past.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: May 30, 2012 |
 | Now that the private sector has proven its ability to resupply the International Space Station, it opens a new frontier for commercial opportunities in space.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 29, 2012 |
 | After a detailed evaluation process, members of the Square Kilometer Array Organization agreed on a dual-site solution — Australia and South Africa.
By the Science and Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom
Published: May 29, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, a SpaceX mission launced to bring cargo to the International Space Station, scientists discovered an exoplanet that appears to be evaporating under the blistering heat of its parent star, Cassini made its closest flyby of the tiny saturnian moon Methone, and more.
Published: May 25, 2012 |
 | With the asteroid's orbit, size, thermal properties, and propulsive force understood, a NASA scientist was able to calculate the space rock’s bulk density from millions of miles away.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 25, 2012 |
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Venus will cross the Sun’s face June 5/6 for the last time in 105 years.
By Richard Talcott
Published: May 25, 2012 |
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June 4’s partial lunar eclipse is better than no eclipse at all.
By Michael E. Bakich
Published: May 25, 2012 |
 | Scientific findings indicate that the carbon was created during volcanism on Mars and show that Mars has been doing organic chemistry for most of its history.
By Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 24, 2012 |
 | Using radio observations, scientists have learned that the galaxy cluster Abell 2256 is brighter and more complex than expected.
By ASTRON, Dwingeloo, Netherlands
Published: May 24, 2012 |
 | New calculations show that the ideal time to study the cosmos was more than 13 billion years ago, just about 500 million years after the Big Bang.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: May 23, 2012 |
 | NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has used a low Sun angle for a memorable view of a large martian crater.
By NASA/JPL
Published: May 23, 2012 |
 | Cassini discovered Methone years ago, but the flyby May 20 marked the spacecraft’s closest approach to the saturnian moon.
By NASA/JPL
Published: May 22, 2012 |
 | The private company’s cargo capsule is scheduled to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 22, 2012 |
 | A planet’s dust cloud may explain strange patterns of light from its star.
By MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: May 21, 2012 |
 | Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 near-Earth asteroids with orbits close to Earth’s and diameters larger than 330 feet (100 meters)
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 21, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, IBEX data revealed that the long-theorized bow shock of our solar system's heliosphere doesn't exist, scientists made a key step in distinguishing between brown dwarf stars and giant planets, the Herschel Space Observatory discovered a giant galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars, and more.
Published: May 18, 2012 |
 | New observations show that the nature of a dimmer, bluer star might provide a better fit for Sharpless 2–71’s “birth parent” than the planetary nebula’s long-assumed central star.
By Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: May 18, 2012 |
 | The filament connects two clusters of galaxies that, along with a third cluster, will smash together and give rise to one of the largest galaxy superclusters in the universe.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: May 18, 2012 |
 | Scientists were able to detect a ring of hot dust that marks the transition from a more distant mixture of gas and dust in a doughnut-shaped structure to a gaseous disk closer to the black hole.
By University of California, Santa Barbara
Published: May 17, 2012 |
 | The first X-ray evidence of a supernova shock wave breaking through a cocoon of gas may help astronomers understand why some supernovae are more powerful than others.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Published: May 16, 2012 |
 | Astronomers think the bright nucleus, strong radio emission, and jet features of Centaurus A are produced by a central black hole with a mass of about 100 million times that of the Sun.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: May 16, 2012 |
 | Discovery of a brown dwarf that is more than 99 percent hydrogen and helium could be a key step forward in helping astronomers distinguish between these starlike objects and giant planets.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: May 15, 2012 |
 | Scientists now have evidence that the mass distribution of stars does, indeed, depend on the environment in which they form.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: May 15, 2012 |
 | Using the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers can see the dense clumps of star formation in this stellar nursery.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: May 14, 2012 |
 | The latest refinements in relative speed and local interstellar magnetic field strength prevent the “bubble” that surrounds our solar system from developing a bow shock.
By Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas
Published: May 14, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, the Dawn spacecraft revealed the asteroid Vesta to be a planetary building block, scientists discovered the most distant protocluster of galaxies, researchers continued to struggle with two different sources for type Ia supernovae, and more.
Published: May 11, 2012 |
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Using the same theory that predicted Neptune's existence, a Kepler team showed that the observed tranist variations of a known exoplanet around a Sun-like star are most likely the result of a hidden world.
By Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas
Published: May 11, 2012 |
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Some observers in the western United States will see the Moon block out most of the Sun’s face May 20, while many others will witness a partial eclipse event.
By Karri Ferron
Published: May 11, 2012 |
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Scientists now see the asteroid Vesta as a layered planetary building block with an iron core — the only one known to survive the earliest days of the solar system.
By NASA/JPL
Published: May 11, 2012 |
 | The nebula NGC 2363 and other patches of star-forming areas serve as the latest sites that will create stellar giants in the irregular galaxy NGC 2366.
By Hubble ESA, Garching, Germany
Published: May 10, 2012 |
 | Astronomers think inflows of gas fuel new stars and supermassive black holes; however, feed a black hole too much and it starts spewing radiation into the galaxy that prevents raw material from coalescing into new stars.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 10, 2012 |
 | While the planet 55 Cancri e is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 9, 2012 |
 | Astronomers study M55 and other globular clusters like it to learn how galaxies evolve and stars age.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: May 9, 2012 |
 | Because protoclusters are ancestors of today's massive clusters of galaxies, the discovery of a protocluster in the early universe advances our understanding of how large-scale structures form and how galaxies evolve.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: May 8, 2012 |
 | With two mechanisms at work in type Ia supernovae, scientists must consider each separately when calculating cosmic distances and expansion rates.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: May 8, 2012 |
 | The Venus transit will be used to test whether this technique will have a chance of detecting the faint fingerprints of an Earth-like planet, even one that might be habitable for life, outside our solar system that similarly transits its own star.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: May 7, 2012 |
 | Collisions of planetesimals, building blocks for planets, may have produced the dusty quartz ring during planet formation around the star.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: May 7, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, scientists watched a black hole consume a nearby star in real time, the Opportunity rover found its best evidence for life on Mars yet, Cassini revealed that Saturn's moon Phoebe has planet-like qualities, and more.
Published: May 4, 2012 |
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Opportunity has found evidence that the original impact that created Endeavour Crater released heated underground water that deposited zinc in fused-together rock fragments around the rim.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: May 4, 2012 |
 | Researchers have found that the most frequently occurring elements in the dust around these four white dwarfs were oxygen, magnesium, iron, and silicon — the four elements that make up roughly 93 percent of Earth.
By University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom, Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: May 3, 2012 |
 | Upon arrival in 2030, JUICE will continuously observe Jupiter’s atmosphere and magnetosphere and the interaction of the Galilean moons with the gas giant planet.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: May 3, 2012 |
 | Scientists were able to observe the demise of a star and its digestion by a previously dormant supermassive black hole in real time.
Published: May 2, 2012 |
 | Dust is important to astronomers as dense clouds of gas and dust are the birthplaces of new stars.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: May 2, 2012 |
 | The discovery provides insight into the mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: May 1, 2012 |
 | The results show that the lava grew denser over time and that the thickness of the Red Planet’s rigid outer layers varies across the Tharsis region.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: May 1, 2012 |
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Die-hard observers still will want to watch the Eta Aquarids at their peak May 5.
By Michael E. Bakich
Published: May 1, 2012 |
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