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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 Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 10:10 a.m. EST March 1.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 28, 2013 |
 | If the discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet formation process and the interaction of a forming planet and its natal environment empirically at a very early stage.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: February 28, 2013 |
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Astronomy magazine's associate editor earns the recognition for her April 2012 article, "How we know black holes exist."
By High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society
Published: February 28, 2013 |
 | The findings resolve a long-standing debate about similar measurements in other black holes and will lead to a better understanding of how black holes and galaxies evolve.
By NASA/JPL
Published: February 27, 2013 |
 | Astronomers determined the distance to and history of an enigmatic stellar system, and discovered it likely to be a binary star cocooned with an exotic nebula.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: February 27, 2013 |
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The brightest comet in several years could make March evenings a time to remember.
By Richard Talcott
Published: February 27, 2013 |
 | Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white dwarf’s planet much more easily than for an Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: February 26, 2013 |
 | The twin spacecraft would intercept the “binary” object around the time of its closest approach to Earth in 2022.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: February 26, 2013 |
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Comet PANSTARRS promises to be the brightest comet in six years when it peaks in March.
By Richard Talcott
Published: February 26, 2013 |
 | Planned for launch in 2022 and arrival at Jupiter in 2030, JUICE will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the biggest planet in the solar system and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: February 25, 2013 |
 | A scientist has created a set of the necessary equations to explain certain aspects observed in the solar wind.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 25, 2013 |
 | The stars’ unusual lateral motion is circumstantial evidence that they may be the remnants of a shredded galaxy that the Milky Way gravitationally ripped apart billions of years ago.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: February 22, 2013 |
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In the past seven days, astronomers began to develop a system to identify dangerous asteroids before their final plunge, scientists think 120-mile-long Tinto Vallis formed around 3.7 billion years ago, Cassini detected a significant acceleration of electrons in a quasi-parallel shock on Saturn, and more.
Published: February 22, 2013 |
 | Massive lava flows may have given rise to two distinct rock types on Mercury’s surface.
By MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: February 22, 2013 |
 | The drill on Curiosity’s robotic arm took in the powder as it bored a hole into a target on flat martian bedrock.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 21, 2013 |
 | The smallest planet, Kepler-37b, is slightly larger than our Moon, measuring about one-third the size of Earth.
By NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: February 21, 2013 |
 | Astronomers discovered complex small structures inside outflows from a distant quasar.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: February 20, 2013 |
 | The Herschel Space Observatory has detected a cool layer in the atmosphere of Alpha Centauri A similar to one in the Sun’s atmosphere.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: February 20, 2013 |
 | For the first time, observations suggest the presence of fast-moving particles in the supernova remnant that could be the precursors of cosmic rays.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: February 19, 2013 |
 | The spacecraft currently studying Saturn detected a significant acceleration of electrons in a quasi-parallel shock.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: February 19, 2013 |
 | Astronomers are developing a system to identify dangerous asteroids before their final plunge to Earth.
By University of Hawaii at Manoa's Institute for Astronomy, Honolulu
Published: February 18, 2013 |
 | The 120-mile-long Tinto Vallis is believed to have formed around 3.7 billion years ago, during the early history of Mars.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: February 18, 2013 |
 | A 55-foot-wide meteor broke up over the country’s Ural region February 15, creating a shock wave of air pressure that collapsed buildings, shattered windows, and injured more than 1,200 people.
By Karri Ferron
Published: February 15, 2013 |
 | A new study reveals the first clear-cut evidence that the expanding debris of exploded stars produces some of the fastest-moving matter in the universe.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: February 15, 2013 |
 | The near-Earth object 2012 DA14 will fly by so close to Earth
on February 15 that it will pass inside the ring of geosynchronous
weather and communications satellites. By Karri Ferron
Published: February 15, 2013 |
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The blast damaged buildings and caused hundreds of injuries.
By Sarah Scoles
Published: February 15, 2013 |
 | Supernova remnant W49B formed when material near the parent star’s poles ejected at a much higher speed than that emanating from its equator.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 14, 2013 |
 | This new image from the La Silla Observatory shows the bright star cluster NGC 6520 and its neighbor Barnard 86.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: February 13, 2013 |
 | In the past year, SDO has opened up several new, and unexpected, doors of scientific inquiry.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 13, 2013 |
 | A team of scientists will determine which way 2012 DA14 is spinning, as the direction of its spin is an important factor in predicting how the object’s orbit will change over time.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: February 12, 2013 |
 | The telescope scanned the whole sky in infrared light, capturing this vast view of the dynamic Orion Nebula.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: February 12, 2013 |
 | It's a first: Ground controllers successfully command a robot arm to drill into a rock to extract a sample on the Red Planet.
By NASA/JPL
Published: February 11, 2013 |
 | A new view of IC 2177 focuses on the presence of ionized hydrogen in the region, a sign of furious star formation.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: February 11, 2013 |
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In the past seven days, astronomers discovered strobe-like flashes in a suspected binary protostar, amateur and professional astronomers teamed up to produce one of the best views yet of nearby spiral galaxy M106, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft acquired its first images of Comet ISON, and more.
Published: February 8, 2013 |
 | Astronomers propose the light flashes are caused by periodic interactions between two newly formed stars that are gravitationally bound to each other.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 8, 2013 |
 | The image shows the dynamic environment in which planets may be born and gives information about constraints on the distance at which planets can form from a central star.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: February 8, 2013 |
 | The Comet ISON imaging campaign is expected to yield infrared data and light curves, which are used in defining the comet’s rotation rate, in addition to visible-light images.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 7, 2013 |
 | Besides microwave emission from M106’s galactic center, the galaxy has another startling feature — instead of two spiral arms, it appears to have four.
By Hubble ESA, Garching, Germany
Published: February 7, 2013 |
 | Astronomers have found that 6 percent of red dwarf stars have habitable Earth-sized planets.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: February 6, 2013 |
 | Researchers’ new theory proposes that the ribbon is a region where particles, originally from the solar wind, become trapped due to intense waves and vibrations in the local galactic magnetic field.
By University of New Hampshire, Durham
Published: February 6, 2013 |
 | The science balloon team broke the record for longest flight by a balloon of its size, and longest flight of any heavy-lift scientific balloon.
By Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: February 5, 2013 |
 | Using XMM-Newton observations, astronomers for the first time have placed constraints on the number of fragments in an adult massive star’s stellar wind.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: February 5, 2013 |
 | The innermost planet reaches greatest elongation February 16.
By Liz Kruesi
Published: February 5, 2013 |
 | A new study suggests that recently discovered super-Earths are actually surrounded by extended hydrogen-rich envelopes, and they are unlikely to ever become Earth-like.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: February 4, 2013 |
 | The passage of 2012 DA14 is a record close approach for a known object of its size.
By NASA/JPL
Published: February 4, 2013 |
 | In the past seven days, Venus Express discovered that our sister planet’s ionosphere balloons out like a comet’s tail, the Herschel Space Observatory captured cool new images of Andromeda Galaxy, and Cassini watched a Saturn storm choke on its own tail, and more.
Published: February 1, 2013 |
 | This is the first time scientists have observed a storm consume itself like this anywhere in the solar system.
By Cassini Imaging Central Lab, Boulder, Colorado
Published: February 1, 2013 |
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