News

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope will be decommissioned on the 30th of January after 16 years of studying exoplanets, our own solar system and far-off galaxies. Because it sees in infrared, AKA heat, Spitzer's capabilities have been crucial for NASA's...

Friday, January 24 One of the sky’s most familiar constellations rules January’s sky from dusk until around 3 a.m. local time. Orion the Hunter appears conspicuous in the southeast after darkness falls and climbs highest in the south betw...

(Inside Science) -- Since the dawn of the universe, the biggest stars have ended their lives with a bang, blowing out their outer layers in bright, fiery bursts that can be seen many light-years away. Astronomers use these supernova explosions like m...

Many stars end their lives as bright explosions called supernovae. Some of these explosions are much brighter than typical and give off up to 100 times more energy. Astronomers call these “superluminous supernovae” and they don’t ye...

The Spitzer Space Telescope — the space observatory that discovered the planet-rich Trappist system, studied some of the most distant galaxies in the universe, and captured countless breathtaking photos of the cosmos — will be shutting do...

Some 70 percent of all stars in the universe are tiny red dwarfs, so faint and dim and seemingly humdrum the casual observer might think stellar physics suffers from a lack of imagination. But the “average star” belies the true breadth a...

The Moon offers something for every observer. It has a face that's always changing. Following it telescopically through a lunar month can be fascinating. Ironically, when the Moon is brightest (Full Moon) is the worst time to view it. From our persp...

It’s hard to know what Earth’s atmosphere was like billions of years ago, but scientists are beginning to figure it out. Based on the chemical properties of tiny micrometeorites that fell to Earth 2.7 billion years ago, a team of resear...

Scientists have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets outside of our Solar System, according to NASA’s Exoplanet Archive. Some of these planets orbit multiple stars at the same time. Certain planets are so close to their star that it takes only a ha...

The European Space Agency has created an experimental “oxygen plant” in the Netherlands that can extract oxygen trapped within simulated Moon dust. Not only does the process extract up to 96 percent of the oxygen in the imitation lunar s...

Yarrabubba crater in western Australia stretches roughly 40 miles across. And since its discovery in 2003, scientists have speculated it's one of Earth’s oldest meteorite craters. Now, a team of researchers has pinned down the crater's precise ...

Launching this summer, the Mars 2020 rover will traverse the Red Planet looking for evidence of past life there and learning more about the environment of our neighboring planet. Equipped with over 20 cameras, a powerful drill, and even a small heli...

Researchers have discovered nine new sources of high-energy photons in the Milky Way, including some of the most energetic gamma rays ever detected. By studying these gamma-ray sources, which all seem to originate near spinning neutron stars called p...

SpaceX, Elon Musk's private aerospace company, successfully completed its final test flight at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The test of the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule brings the company one step closer to launching astro...

Friday, January 17 Last Quarter Moon occurs at 7:58 a.m. EST. By the time it rises shortly after 1 a.m. local time Saturday morning, it will appear slightly but noticeably less than half-lit. The Moon then lies near the border between the constellati...

Astronomers have discovered four new and mysterious objects orbiting the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. The bizarre objects look a lot like common clouds of gas and dust, but they surprisingly manage to stay compact like stars a...

Our nearest celestial neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri, likely has a second planet. The planet, dubbed Proxima c, is at least about 6 times the mass of Earth and orbits its tiny red dwarf host once every 5.2 years. If confirmed, the newly discove...

Throughout the universe, bright explosions that astronomers call gamma-ray bursts blaze through space. These gamma-ray bursts are the brightest explosions known — a typical gamma-ray burst can produce as much energy in the seconds or minutes of...

NASA TV will be airing live the next three spacewalks, which will finish repairs to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and replacement of batteries on the solar panels on the on the International Space Station (ISS).