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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.
 | Physicists celebrate centenary of the discovery of cosmic rays
By Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Hamburg, Germany
Published: July 31, 2012 |
 | The new data suggest a neutron star lurks within supernova remnant SN 1957D, located about 15 million light-years away in spiral galaxy M83.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Published: July 30, 2012 |
 | NGC 4700 has many bright pinkish clouds where intense ultraviolet light from hot young stars causes hydrogen gas to glow.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 30, 2012 |
 | A new mirror design could prove “game-changing” for X-ray astronomy, reducing cost while improving sensibility.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: July 27, 2012 |
 | This telescope is dedicated to observing the most violent and extreme phenomena of the universe in high-energy gamma rays.
By Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany
Published: July 27, 2012 |
 | In the past seven days, astronomers released the highest resolution images ever taken of the Sun’s corona, scientists discovered a neutron star with a strong rotation glitch, the Odyssey spacecraft repositioned itself, and more.
Published: July 27, 2012 |
 | The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has collected about 17 billion cosmic-ray events.
By CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Published: July 26, 2012 |
 | The Very Large Telescope finds most stellar heavyweights come in interacting pairs.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 26, 2012 |
 | An unstable disk surrounding the early Sun could answer long-standing questions about the composition of comets.
By Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 25, 2012 |
 | Without a repositioning maneuver, Odyssey would have arrived over the landing area about two minutes after Curiosity landed.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 25, 2012 |
 | Scientists discover a young and energetic neutron star that experienced the strongest rotation glitch ever observed for a gamma-ray-only pulsar.
By Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Hannover, Germany
Published: July 24, 2012 |
 | The soft-spoken physicist broke the gender barrier 29 years ago when she rode to orbit aboard the space shuttle Challenger to become America’s first woman in space.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 24, 2012 |
 | The 40-year Landsat record provides global coverage that delivers the most consistent and reliable record of our planet’s changing landscape.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 23, 2012 |
 | Understanding the Sun's activity and its effects on Earth's environment was the objective of the High Resolution Coronal Imager, which provided unprecedented views of the dynamic activity and structure in the solar atmosphere.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: July 23, 2012 |
 | In the past seven days, scientists discovered a grand design spiral galaxy in the early universe, the Spitzer Space Telescope nabbed its first exoplanet candidate, Cassini witnessed daytime lightning on Saturn, and more.
Published: July 20, 2012 |
 | Scientists were able to identify how small-scale magnetic “bubbles” were efficient in deflecting the solar wind particles that bombard the Moon.
By the Science and Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom
Published: July 20, 2012 |
 | Scientists discovered that the unexpected slowing of the twin spacecraft results from heat output from their power sources.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 20, 2012 |
 | Scientists have deduced that the lightning bolts originate in the clouds deep down in Saturn's atmosphere where water droplets freeze.
By Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 19, 2012 |
 | Data from the space telescope revealed an unexpected world orbiting closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 19, 2012 |
 | The quasar observations made by connecting the APEX telescope to two others on different continents is a crucial step toward the goal of imaging supermassive black holes at the center of our galaxy and others.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 18, 2012 |
 | The discovery of a grand design spiral galaxy in the early universe could hold clues to how spirals start to take shape.
By W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: July 18, 2012 |
 | The Mars Science Laboratory mission is a precursor for future human missions to Mars.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 17, 2012 |
 | A new analysis of the common model explaining how the planets formed around our Sun uncovers a possible reason for Earth's comparative dryness.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: July 17, 2012 |
 | Scientists have discovered that the object illuminating the nebula is a protostar rotating once a day, or 30 times faster than the Sun.
By Rochester Institute of Technology, New York
Published: July 16, 2012 |
 |
In the past seven days, the Hubble Space Telescope found a fifth moon orbiting Pluto, astronomers spotted dark galaxies of the early universe for the first time, Cassini observed a high-altitude haze and a vortex
materializing on Titan's south pole, and
more.
Published: July 13, 2012 |
 | Scientists have suggested that a fluidized ejecta pattern indicates the presence of subsurface ice that melted during an impact.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: July 13, 2012 |
 | Scientific findings contradict prevailing theories about the relationship between comets and water-bearing carbonaceous chondrites and suggest that meteorites, and their parent asteroids, are the most likely sources of Earth's water.
By Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 13, 2012 |
 | The moon is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be coplanar with the other satellites in the system.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: July 12, 2012 |
 | Multiple instruments aboard the Cassini spacecraft have been keeping an eye on the Titan atmosphere above the south pole for signs of the coming southern winter, like the high-altitude haze and a vortex now materializing.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 12, 2012 |
 | Researchers found that three small galaxies all started forming stars and then abruptly stopped, all in the first billion years after the Big Bang.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: July 11, 2012 |
 | Astronomers think that dark galaxies may have fed large galaxies with much of the gas that later formed into the stars that exist today.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: July 11, 2012 |
 | The change in the spacecraft’s orbital angle has allowed scientists to revisit the propeller features in the planet’s rings.
By Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 10, 2012 |
 | Scientists used gravitational lensing of two galaxy clusters to “see” the filament of the elusive matter connecting them.
By University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Published: July 10, 2012 |
 | The scene recorded from the mast-mounted color camera includes Opportunity’s own solar arrays and deck in the foreground, providing a sense of sitting on top of the rover and taking in the view.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 9, 2012 |
 | Vela C, which is a massive star nursery just 2,300 light-years from the Sun, is an ideal natural laboratory for scientists to study the birth of stars.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: July 9, 2012 |
 |
In the past seven days, CERN researchers observed a particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson, astronomers discovered that a planet-forming disk has abruptly shut down, scientists found several red dwarf binaries with orbital periods
significantly shorter than the five-hour cut-off found for Sun-like
stars, and
more.
Published: July 6, 2012 |
 | Scientists found several red dwarf binaries with orbital periods significantly shorter than the five-hour cut-off found for Sun-like stars, something previously thought to be impossible.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: July 6, 2012 |
 | In a mystery that is baffling astronomers, a Sun-like star that once displayed all of the characteristics of hosting a solar system in the making now shows little warm dusty material surrounding it.
By Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: July 6, 2012 |
 | For two days in late August, you can observe the Moon and planets and join in a variety of astronomy-related activities.
Published: July 6, 2012 |
 | Although the results show that this new particle has many of the expected properties of the Higgs, the researchers still require more data to determine for certain if the particle they've discovered is indeed the one predicted by the standard model of particle physics.
By CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Published: July 5, 2012 |
 | Careful study has repeatedly failed to find the source star driving the geyser of hot gas known as Herbig-Haro 110, which might be because the outflow is itself generated by another jet.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: July 5, 2012 |
 | The final analysis of the data does not settle the question of whether the Higgs particle exists, but it gets closer to an answer.
By Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois
Published: July 3, 2012 |
 | Intense ultraviolet light from a central massive star 20 times heavier than our Sun, and buried in the blanketing dust, causes the Orion star-forming complex to glow in infrared light.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: July 3, 2012 |
 | The celestial object that passed through the Milky Way could have been one of the small satellite galaxies that moves around the center of our galaxy or an invisible structure such as a dark matter halo.
By Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois
Published: July 2, 2012 |
 | The new space capsule will provide emergency abort capability, sustain astronauts during space travel, and provide safe reentry from deep space.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: July 2, 2012 |
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