Home
/
News

News

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.

Friday, October 04, 2013

Mars crater may actually be ancient supervolcano

A research project led by Joseph R. Michalski from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has identified what could be a supervolcano on Mars — the first discovery of its kind. The volcano in question, a vast circular basin on the...

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Astronomers observe distant galaxy powered by primordial cosmic fuel

Astronomers have detected cold streams of primordial hydrogen, vestigial matter left over from the Big Bang, fueling a distant star-forming galaxy in the early universe. Profuse flows of gas onto galaxies are believed to be crucial for explaining an ...

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Herschel helps find elusive signals from the early universe

Using a telescope in Antarctica and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have made the first detection of a subtle twist in the relic radiation from the Big Bang, paving the way toward revealing the first mo...

Final antenna delivered to ALMA

The final antenna for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) project has just been handed over to the ALMA Observatory. The 12-meter-diameter dish was manufactured by the European AEM Consortium and also marks the successful delivery...

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Space telescopes find patchy clouds on exotic world

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet beyond our solar system, a sizzling Jupiter-like world known as Kepler-7b. The planet is marked by high clouds in the west and ...

Cassini spacecraft finds ingredient of household plastic in space

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected propylene, a chemical used to make food-storage containers, car bumpers, and other consumer products, on Saturn’s moon Titan. This is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any ...

Monday, September 30, 2013

Cygnus arrives at the International Space Station

A week after its original approach date, Orbital Sciences’ commercial cargo craft Cygnus has arrived at the International Space Station. The Expedition 37 crew captured Cygnus with the Canadarm2 at 7 a.m. EDT September 29. Cygnus launched Septe...

Friday, September 27, 2013

Science benefits from diverse landing area of Mars rover

NASA’s Curiosity rover is revealing a great deal about Mars from long-ago processes in its interior to the current interaction between the martian surface and atmosphere. Examination of loose rocks, sand, and dust has provided new understanding...

Thursday, September 26, 2013

First light of powerful new camera on APEX

A new instrument called ArTeMiS has been successfully installed on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX). APEX is a 12-meter-diameter telescope located high in the Atacama Desert, which operates at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths — ...

Mars rover Curiosity inspects pebbly rocks at martian waypoint

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has resumed a trek of many months toward its mountain-slope destination, Mount Sharp. The rover used instruments on its arm last week to inspect rocks at its first waypoint along the route inside Gale Crater. The locatio...

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Star morphs from radio to X-ray pulsar and back again

Astronomers have uncovered the strange case of a neutron star with the peculiar ability to transform from a radio pulsar into an X-ray pulsar and back again. This star’s capricious behavior appears to be fueled by a nearby companion star and ma...

Hubble and Chandra find evidence for densest nearby galaxy

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory and telescopes on the ground may have found the most crowded galaxy in our part of the universe. The ultra-compact dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1 is packed with an extraordin...

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Long-stressed Europa likely off-kilter at one time

By analyzing the distinctive cracks lining the icy face of Europa, NASA scientists found evidence that this moon of Jupiter likely spun around a tilted axis at some point. "One of the mysteries of Europa is why the orientations of the long, straig...

Deep space comet hunter mission comes to an end

After almost nine years in space that included an unprecedented July 4 impact and subsequent flyby of a comet, an additional comet flyby, and the return of approximately 500,000 images of celestial objects, NASA's Deep Impact mission has ended. The ...

Monday, September 23, 2013

NASA Curiosity rover detects no methane on Mars

Data from NASA's Curiosity rover has revealed that the martian environment lacks methane. This is a surprise to researchers because previous data reported by U.S. and international scientists indicated positive detections. The roving laboratory perf...

Cygnus rendezvous postponed to no earlier than Saturday

Managers from Orbital Sciences and NASA decided Monday morning to postpone the approach, rendezvous, grapple, and berthing operations of Orbital's Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft with the International Space Station to no earlier than Saturday, Sep...