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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.
 | Researchers’ findings support the idea that Mars’ subsurface environment once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life.
By Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Published: January 31, 2013 |
 | Southern-sky viewers have all the luck this month.
By Michael E. Bakich
Published: January 31, 2013 |
 | The Herschel Space Observatory shows a much larger mass for TW Hydrae’s disk than in previous studies, indicating that the system could be forming planets similar to those of our solar system.
By Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany
Published: January 30, 2013 |
 | The Herschel Space Observatory captures two infrared images of the spiral galaxy.
By NASA/JPL
Published: January 30, 2013 |
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DEM L50 gives off about 20 times more X-rays than expected from standard models for the evolution of superbubbles.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: January 29, 2013 |
 | Venus Express has discovered that our sister planet’s ionosphere balloons out like a comet’s tail on its nightside.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: January 29, 2013 |
 | Scientists used the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager instrument for a close-up nighttime look at a rock target called Sayunei.
By NASA/JPL
Published: January 28, 2013 |
 | The mission will study the evolution of our universe and the dark matter and dark energy that influence its evolution in ways that still are poorly understood.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 28, 2013 |
 | Transient grooves form on dunes when gas trapped under the ice blanket finds an escape point and whooshes out, carrying sand with it.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 25, 2013 |
 | Scientists have found that this object, whose radio emission is known to switch on and off periodically, exhibits the same behavior, but in reverse, when observed at X-ray wavelengths.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: January 25, 2013 |
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In the past seven days, a NASA spacecraft provided new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars, a space instrument added a big piece to the solar corona puzzle, a pulsar left astronomers baffled, and more.
Published: January 25, 2013 |
 | Join like-minded individuals for a fun-packed astronomy event February 16.
Published: January 25, 2013 |
 | A team of astronomers thinks a companion star and a newly confirmed outer exoplanet could explain a 2008 exoplanet’s “backward” orbit.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: January 24, 2013 |
| Comet PANSTARRS, the brightest such object in six years, will stand out this March.
By Richard Talcott
Published: January 24, 2013 |
 | APEX’s submillimeter observations of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex reveal a possible cavity in the nebula NGC 1999.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: January 24, 2013 |
 | One of the mechanisms that pumps energy into the corona is a complex process known as magnetic reconnection.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: January 23, 2013 |
 | Astronomers have found that the universe has cooled down just the way the Big Bang theory predicts.
By CSIRO, Sydney, Australia
Published: January 23, 2013 |
 | The star and its surrounding arcs could collide with an intriguing dusty “wall” in 5,000 years.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: January 22, 2013 |
 | Deep Space Industries will send a fleet of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft out into the solar system to hunt for resources to accelerate space development.
By Deep Space Industries, McClean, Virginia
Published: January 22, 2013 |
 | The detection of high levels of the isotope carbon-14 and beryllium-10 in tree rings formed in A.D. 775 suggest that a burst of radiation struck Earth in the year 774 or 775.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: January 21, 2013 |
 | The new information comes from researchers analyzing data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 21, 2013 |
 | The riverlike structure is believed to have formed when running water flowed in the distant martian past.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: January 18, 2013 |
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In the past seven days, Curiosity began preparing to drill its first martian rock, NASA announced an agreement with the European Space Agency to provide
a service module for the Orion spacecraft, Cassini scientists suggest blocks of hydrocarbon ice might decorate the
surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturn's
moon Titan, and more.
Published: January 18, 2013 |
 | Saturn’s largest moon may look younger than it really is because its craters are getting erased.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: January 18, 2013 |
 | Vast clouds of gas within the Large Magellanic Cloud slowly collapse to form new stars, and in turn, these light up the gas clouds in a riot of colors.
By Hubble ESA, Garching, Germany
Published: January 17, 2013 |
 | The service module will be the powerhouse that fuels and propels the manned spacecraft.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 17, 2013 |
 | Curiosity will be the first rover to drill and ingest samples from a martian rock, which it then will analyze for information about the object’s mineral and chemical composition.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 16, 2013 |
 | Scientists believe most new suns form in modest star formation regions, which makes the dark cloud Lupus 3 a fascinating target.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: January 16, 2013 |
 | Scientists find that blocks of hydrocarbon ice might decorate the surface of existing lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbon on Saturn’s largest moon.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: January 15, 2013 |
 | Using a combination of data, astronomers have zeroed in on the source of an ancient outburst.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: January 15, 2013 |
 | A puzzling cloud near the center of the Milky Way may hold clues to how stars are born.
By California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Published: January 14, 2013 |
 | Studying objects within clusters like 47 Tucanae may help scientists understand how these oddballs form and interact.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: January 14, 2013 |
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In the past seven days, Kepler scientists announced 461 new exoplanet candidates, astronomers identified a new structure in our galaxy, Hubble scientists discovered the most distant well-measured type Ia supernova ever found, and more.
Published: January 11, 2013 |
 | The latest images allow a team of astronomers to calculate that the planet follows an unusual elliptical orbit that carries it on a potentially destructive path through a vast dust ring.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 11, 2013 |
 | Data shows the asteroid is bigger than first estimated and less reflective.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: January 11, 2013 |
 | Astronomers have crowned spiral galaxy NGC 6872 the largest-known spiral based on data that shows it spans more than 522,000 light-years.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: January 11, 2013 |
 | Gemini Observatory’s most advanced adaptive optics system will help astronomers study the universe with an unprecedented level of clarity and detail by removing distortions due to Earth’s atmosphere.
By Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: January 10, 2013 |
 | Scientists used Hubble Space Telescope data to discover the most distant well-measured type Ia supernova ever found.
By Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
Published: January 10, 2013 |
 | Scientists found regions where massive young stars or clusters of stars are forming, which serve as markers of the galaxy’s structure.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: January 10, 2013 |
 | Astronomers have identified a new structure in our galaxy — a long tendril of dust and gas.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: January 9, 2013 |
 | The data are consistent with the star having an inner warm belt and outer cool belt separated by a gap.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 9, 2013 |
 | The forecast shows wind-driven, planet-sized clouds enshrouding these strange worlds.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 9, 2013 |
 | The orbiting telescope is giving scientists a wealth of new information on a wide array of cosmic phenomena in the high-energy X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 8, 2013 |
 | Extrapolating from Kepler's currently ongoing observations and results from other detection techniques, it looks like practically all Sun-like stars have planets.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: January 8, 2013 |
 | The findings show a steady increase in the number of smaller-sized planet candidates and the number of stars with more than one candidate.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 8, 2013 |
 | Scientists were conducting a long-term study of molecules in galaxies when one of the galaxies showed a dramatic change.
By NRAO, Socorro, New Mexico
Published: January 7, 2013 |
 | Although only one of the 10 stars thought to harbor comets is known to harbor planets, the fact that all these stars have massive surrounding disks of gas and dust makes it likely they all do.
By University of California, Berkeley
Published: January 7, 2013 |
 | Astronomers have been amazed to find a group of dwarf galaxies moving in unison in the vicinity of the Andromeda Galaxy.
By W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: January 4, 2013 |
 | A team of scientists determined that the meteorite formed 2.1 billion years ago during the beginning of the most recent geologic period on the Red Planet.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: January 4, 2013 |
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In the past 14 days, WMAP scientists released final results on the infant universe, a surprise pancake structure in the Andromeda Galaxy upends galactic understanding, astronomers mapped the enormous outflows of charged particles from the center of our galaxy, and more.
Published: January 4, 2013 |
 | The team made its estimate while analyzing planets orbiting a star called Kepler-32.
By California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Published: January 3, 2013 |
 | Astronomers made radio observations of the giant bubble structures at the center of the Milky Way to determine what causes them.
By International Center for Radio Astronomy Research, Perth, Western Australia
Published: January 2, 2013 |
 | A team of astronomers have studied the young star HD 142527 and found streams of gas flowing across gaps in the star’s surrounding disk.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: January 2, 2013 |
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