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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.
 | With more than 30 entries, the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit wins Astronomy’s annual award honoring astronomy outreach programs. By Bill Andrews
Published: March 31, 2011 |
 | Potentially habitable planets orbiting white dwarfs could be much easier to find, if they exist, than other exoplanets located so far away.
By University of Washington, Seattle
Published: March 31, 2011 |
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The spacecraft is sending back its first images from the innermost planet, including views of uncharted terrain, after successfully going into orbit on March 17.
By Liz Kruesi
Published: March 30, 2011 |
 | NGC 371 is home to an unexpectedly large number of variable stars.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: March 30, 2011 |
 | Research reveals that Supernova 2008am is the brightest “self-interacting” supernova discovered.
By McDonald Observatory at University of Texas, Austin
Published: March 29, 2011 |
 | New Integral observations show astronomers that the chaotic region near a black hole is threaded by magnetic fields.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: March 28, 2011 |
 | Clusters provide independent checks on cosmological values established by other means, such as galaxy surveys, exploding stars, and the cosmic microwave background.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 28, 2011 |
 | Supernova remnants are our best cosmic laboratories for understanding how nature accelerates the highest-energy cosmic rays.
By Rutgers University
Published: March 25, 2011 |
 | All that the saturnian system has to offer will shine beautifully and brightly in early April.
By Bill Andrews
Published: March 25, 2011 |
 | The final burn with the spacecraft’s main engines will effectively end the life of NASA's most traveled comet hunter.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 24, 2011 |
 | A mixture of compounds, including hydrogen sulfide, may have been important in the formation of amino acids on Earth.
By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: March 24, 2011 |
 | This binary system is cool enough to begin crossing the blurred line dividing small, cold stars from big, hot planets.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: March 23, 2011 |
 | The hypothesis that an enormous bubble of relatively empty space surrounds our galactic neighborhood has been invalidated.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 22, 2011 |
 | The Spitzer Space Telescope penetrates the shroud of dust around the heart of our galaxy with infrared light, giving us an unprecedented view.
By NASA/JPL
Published: March 22, 2011 |
 | For the first time in history, an observatory is in orbit around our solar system's innermost planet.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 21, 2011 |
 | After years of dry weather in this satellite’s tropic region, a sizable area experienced methane rain over a period of just a few weeks.
By University of Arizona-Tucson
Published: March 17, 2011 |
 | The spacecraft’s seven instruments delivered 192 terabytes of additional data with an unprecedented level of detail.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 16, 2011 |
 | At last, astronomers are poised to help solve some of Mercury’s many mysteries.
By University of Colorado, Boulder
Published: March 15, 2011 |
 | The Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer will be the first instrument to explore the plasma in Mercury's environment.
By University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Published: March 15, 2011 |
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A recent study has shown that the galaxy's X-ray emission was likely caused by an outburst powered by the supermassive black hole at the galactic center.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: March 11, 2011 |
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The innermost planet reaches greatest eastern elongation March 22, 2011.
By Liz Kruesi
Published: March 11, 2011 |
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Astronomers will make repeated observations in order to significantly improve their understanding of the asteroid's orbit and therefore the details of the 2029 close approach and future impact possibilities.
By University of Hawaii at Manoa's Institute for Astronomy, Honolulu
Published: March 10, 2011 |
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On March 17, the spacecraft will become the first to ever orbit the innermost planet.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 10, 2011 |
 | If deeply buried carbonate layers are widespread, they could help explain the disappearance of most of ancient Mars' atmosphere.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: March 9, 2011 |
 | The new results support the idea that mature clusters existed when the universe was less than one-quarter its current age.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: March 9, 2011 |
 | Fissures on the saturnian moon produce 2.6 times the power output of all the hot springs in Yellowstone.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: March 8, 2011 |
 | Monstrous pillars of dense gas and dust line up along the edges of a cosmic hole.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: March 8, 2011 |
 | The wind originates from multiple ejection sites spread over hundreds of light-years rather than emanating from any single cluster of new stars.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: March 7, 2011 |
 | These elongated craters are probably the result of two projectiles slamming into the same area.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: March 7, 2011 |
 | Sixteen-year-old Benjamin Palmer of Queensbury, New York, wins a trip to the Northeast Astronomy Forum and Telescope Show (NEAF) with his entry for Astronomy’s 2011 Youth Essay Contest. More than 50 young enthusiasts submitted essays detailing what they love best about astronomy.
By Karri Ferron
Published: March 4, 2011 |
 | This planet offers a new opportunity to study the planetary formation processes, in particular the interactions between the planets and their native disks.
By Astronomy & Astrophysics, Paris, France
Published: March 4, 2011 |
 | Telemetry indicated the protective shell atop the rocket did not separate as expected.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: March 4, 2011 |
 | Scientists find that these largest-known molecules are commonly found in hydrogen-rich environments and, therefore, are more common in space than previously believed.
By McDonald Observatory at University of Texas, Austin
Published: March 3, 2011 |
 | New computer simulations imply that the Sun's long quiet spell resulted from changing flows of hot plasma.
By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: March 3, 2011 |
 | This highly inclined spiral galaxy is more than a million light-years closer to the Milky Way than was previously thought, bringing its distance down to just over 11 million light-years.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: March 2, 2011 |
 | Robinson was a champion of professional-amateur astronomy collaborations.
By Sky & Telescope, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: March 1, 2011 |
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