Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70 meters) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, which made its closest approach January 26, 2015, ...

Astronomers poring over four years of data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft have discovered a star that’s 11.2 billion years old and has at least five Earth-sized planets. “We thus show that Earth-sized planets have formed throughout ...

A panorama from one of the highest elevations that NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached in its 11 years on Mars includes the U.S. flag at the summit. The view is from the top of “Cape Tribulation,” a raised section...

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission is providing unique insight into the life cycle of a comet’s dusty surface, watching 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it sheds the dusty coat it has accumulated over the past four years. The ...

In a special edition of the journal Science, initial results are presented from seven of Rosetta’s 11 science instruments based on measurements made during the approach to and soon after arriving at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in Augu...

In a special edition of the journal Science, initial results are presented from seven of Rosetta’s 11 science instruments based on measurements made during the approach to and soon after arriving at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in Augu...

The year 2015 has been declared the International Year of Light (IYL) by the United Nations. Organizations, institutions, and individuals involved in the science and applications of light will be joining together for this yearlong celebration to help...

Yale University astronomers have identified the first “changing look” quasar, a gleaming object in deep space that appears to have its own dimmer switch. The discovery may offer a glimpse into the life story of the universe’s great...

On January 19, 2015, at 12:49 p.m. EST, an instrument on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured its 100 millionth image of the Sun. The instrument is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), which uses four telescopes working parallel to gather ei...

As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft closes in on Ceres, new images show the dwarf planet at 27 pixels across, about three times better than the calibration images taken in early December. These are the first in a series of images that will be taken for n...

A strange phenomenon has been observed by astronomers right as it was happening — a “fast radio burst.” The eruption is described as an extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from an unknown source in the universe. Over the pa...

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft discovered and characterized 40 near-Earth objects (NEOs) in the first year after the mission was restarted in December 2013. Eight of the discoveries have been classified as po...

NASA’s Kepler space telescope, despite being hobbled by the loss of critical guidance systems, has discovered a star with three planets only slightly larger than Earth. The outermost planet orbits in the “Goldilocks” zone, a region ...

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has begun its long-awaited historic encounter with Pluto, entering the first of several approach phases that will culminate with the first close-up flyby of the Pluto system six months from now. “NASA&rsquo...

The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) has achieved first light at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. This project will search for transiting exoplanets — planets that pass in front of their pare...

An asteroid designated 2004 BL86 will pass safely about three times the distance of Earth to the Moon on January 26. From its reflected brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about a third of a mile (0.5 kilometer) in size. The flyby o...