|
|
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.
 | An international team of scientists proposes a new theory to explain the doughnut-shaped dust clouds surrounding these singularities.
By University of Leicester, United Kingdom, Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: October 31, 2011 |
 | Scientists are treating the flyby of the asteroid as a science target of opportunity, allowing instruments on “spacecraft Earth” to scan it during the close pass.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: October 31, 2011 |
 |
This week's news featured new measurements of a dwarf planet, Jupiter on display, a nebula with some "teeth," and more.
Published: October 28, 2011 |
 | The galaxy merger rate is one of the fundamental measures of galaxy evolution, yielding clues to how galaxies bulked up over time.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: October 28, 2011 |
 | Scientists are sure now that Lutetia is an older, primitive mini-world.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: October 28, 2011 |
 | The “teeth” are pillars of gas and dust where new stars may be forming.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: October 27, 2011 |
 | A new study proves that the two objects are essentially the same size, while Eris is 27 percent more massive than Pluto.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: October 27, 2011 |
 | The remnants will trail along in a debris cloud that will follow a well-understood path out of the inner solar system.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: October 26, 2011 |
 | Galaxies in close pairs are twice as likely to harbor active galactic nuclei as compared to galaxies in isolation, resulting in enhanced black hole growth.
By Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, Kashiwa, Japan
Published: October 26, 2011 |
 | The first documented supernova was a type Ia explosion into a cavity around a white dwarf.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: October 25, 2011 |
 | Scientists conclude that a smaller asteroid obliquely impacted Scheila from behind.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: October 25, 2011 |
 | The big surprise was the discovery of an opaque disk surrounding the water vapor that is rapidly forming stars.
By NOVA, Leiden
Published: October 24, 2011 |
 |
Look in the eastern sky October 28 for the brilliant planet.
By Liz Kruesi
Published: October 24, 2011 |
 | Scientists are finding that once these planet systems reach ages of a few million years, their disks begin to show a wealth of structure, including rings, divots, gaps, and spiral features.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: October 24, 2011 |
 | For the first time, scientists have been able to directly measure the planet itself as well as the dusty matter around it.
By W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: October 21, 2011 |
 |
This week's news featured an exoplanet caught forming, an unexpected distribution of dark matter, two new globular clusters, and more.
Published: October 21, 2011 |
 | This is the first evidence of vast quantities of water extending out into the cooler far reaches of stellar disks.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: October 21, 2011 |
 | The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago, which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: October 20, 2011 |
 | Astronomers classify this object as a brown dwarf, an object that formed just like a star out of a massive cloud of dust and gas.
By Penn State University, University Park
Published: October 20, 2011 |
 | Scientists report that a mechanism known as mass transfer explains the origins of these old stars that still burn hot and blue.
By Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Published: October 19, 2011 |
 | This survey has also turned up the first star cluster that is far beyond the center of the Milky Way on the other side of our galaxy.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: October 19, 2011 |
 |
Debris from Halley’s Comet gives birth to one of 2011’s best meteor showers.
By Richard Talcott
Published: October 18, 2011 |
 | Dark matter should be densely packed in the centers of galaxies. Instead, new measurements of two dwarf galaxies show that they contain a smooth distribution of dark matter.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: October 18, 2011 |
 | Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the Sun than any previous mission, and Euclid will map out the large-scale structure of the universe with unprecedented accuracy.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: October 17, 2011 |
 | The results are proof that an Earth-like environment once existed in at least one particular spot on the Red Planet for a short time.
By California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Published: October 17, 2011 |
 |
This week's news featured new maps of dark matter, titanium on the Moon, a surprising amount of brown dwarfs, and more.
Published: October 14, 2011 |
 | Scientists are constructing highly detailed galaxy cluster maps to test surprising results that suggest that dark matter is more densely packed inside clusters than some models predict.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: October 13, 2011 |
 | The peak of Vesta’s south pole mountain rises about 13 miles (22 kilometers) above the average height of the surrounding terrain.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: October 13, 2011 |
 | By carefully studying some of the most distant galaxies, scientists have been able to establish a timeline for reionization for the first time.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: October 12, 2011 |
 | One cluster contains a surprising surplus of brown dwarfs; it harbors half as many of these astronomical oddballs as normal stars.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: October 12, 2011 |
 | An abundance of such craters can result when an asteroid or other projectile breaks up into many pieces in the atmosphere before crashing to the ground.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: October 11, 2011 |
 | Not only is titanium a valuable element, but it also is key to helping scientists unravel the mysteries of the Moon’s interior.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science
Published: October 11, 2011 |
 | A multiple-telescope campaign has revealed that Minerva is unusually round for an asteroid and has a possibly unique structure.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science, SETI Institute, Mountain View, California
Published: October 10, 2011 |
 | Hidden gems in the Hubble archive give scientists a time machine for comparing earlier planet orbital motion data to more recent observations.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland
Published: October 10, 2011 |
 | Data indicates that a significant amount of carbon existed as early as 12.5 billion years ago.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: October 10, 2011 |
 | If Uranus was not tilted in one blow, as is commonly thought, but rather was bumped in at least two smaller collisions, there is a much higher probability of seeing its moons orbit in the direction we observe.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science
Published: October 7, 2011 |
 |
This week's news featured a ALMA's first image, a map of Titan, the anatomy around a black hole, and more.
Published: October 7, 2011 |
 | Studying turbulence will help scientists understand why some parts of the Milky Way are hotter than others, and why stars form at particular times in particular places.
By CSIRO, Sydney, Australia, NOVA, Leiden
Published: October 7, 2011 |
 | Titan has emerged as an exotic frozen world with many Earth-like geological features.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science
Published: October 7, 2011 |
 | Comparing the ozone properties with those of the equivalent layers on Earth and Mars will help astronomers refine their searches for life on other planets.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science
Published: October 6, 2011 |
 | The new results point to Kuiper Belt comets having performed a previously underappreciated service in bearing water to Earth.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: October 6, 2011 |
 | Researchers have detected pulses of gamma rays with energies exceeding 100 billion electron volts — a million times more energetic than medical X-rays and 100 billion times more than visible light.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: October 6, 2011 |
 |
The researchers earned recognition for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.
By The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Published: October 5, 2011 |
 | Scientists suggest most of type Ia supernovae result when two white dwarf stars merge and annihilate in a thermonuclear explosion.
By University of California, Berkeley
Published: October 5, 2011 |
 | Mapping of ice particles indicates that the plumes and their heat source are relatively long-lived and have blanketed areas of the surface in a thick layer.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science
Published: October 5, 2011 |
 | Preliminary results from crater age dates indicate that areas in the Southern Hemisphere are as young as 1 to 2 billion years old — much younger than areas in the north.
By European Planetary Science Congress, AAS Division for Planetary Science
Published: October 4, 2011 |
 | ALMA’s first released image reveals a view of the universe that cannot be seen at all by visible-light and infrared telescopes.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: October 4, 2011 |
 | Scientists chose to study the black hole that lies at the heart of the Markarian 509 galaxy.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: October 3, 2011 |
 | Scientists see this discovery as having major implications for understanding the water cycle and the historical evolution of the atmosphere.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: October 3, 2011 |
|
 |
Look for this icon. This denotes premium subscriber content.
Learn more » |
Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly e-mail newsletter
|