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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.
 | The new data indicate that the water ice in Mercury’s polar regions, if spread over an area the size of Washington, D.C., would be more than 2 miles thick.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 30, 2012 |
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Its mass, at 17 billion times the mass of the Sun, is much greater than current models predict, especially because it lies inside a fairly small disk galaxy.
By Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany
Published: November 30, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, MESSENGER found new evidence for water ice on Mercury, astronomers discovered a record-setting X-ray jet, researchers uncovered a giant black hole that could upset galaxy evolution models,
and
more.
Published: November 30, 2012 |
 | This finding gives scientists a glimpse into the explosive activity associated with the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Published: November 29, 2012 |
 | Data show evidence for sinking air where it was upwelling earlier in the mission.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: November 29, 2012 |
 | In a new Herschel study, two nearby planetary systems have been found to host vast amounts of cometary debris.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: November 28, 2012 |
 | This is the first time that a quasar outflow has been measured to have the sort of high energies predicted by theory.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: November 28, 2012 |
 | Scientists have spotted a feature shaped like “Pac-Man” on Tethys, the second for the saturnian system.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: November 27, 2012 |
 | Scientists captured a clear image of the protoplanetary disk of the star UX Tauri A with dust grains that appear to be in the process of forming planets.
By Subaru Telescope Facility, Hilo, Hawaii
Published: November 27, 2012 |
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The Quadrantids, one of the best but least-known meteor showers, will shine in the new year.
By Michael E. Bakich
Published: November 26, 2012 |
 | New work that has yielded precise distances of a large sample of clusters may lead to understanding the expansion of our universe.
By NOAO, Tucson, Arizona
Published: November 26, 2012 |
 | An oddly dim, exploding star could throw new light on dark energy.
By University of Chicago, Illinois
Published: November 26, 2012 |
 |
In the past 14 days, NASA's great observatories found a candidate for the most distant galaxy, astronomers measured the universe's deceleration before dark energy took over, the Kepler space telescope completed its prime mission,
and
more.
Published: November 23, 2012 |
 | Frigid Makemake’s passage in front of a distant star revealed its secrets for the first time.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: November 21, 2012 |
 | The filament provides evidence that the universe’s early weblike arrangement of gas ultimately led to galaxy and galaxy cluster formation.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: November 21, 2012 |
 | Kappa Andromedae b teeters on the dividing line that separates the most massive planets from the lowest-mass brown dwarfs.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 20, 2012 |
 | The knowledge being gained helps scientists interpret evidence about environmental changes on the Red Planet that might have led to conditions favorable for life.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: November 19, 2012 |
 | The farthest galaxy offers a peek back into a time when the universe was 3 percent of its present age of 13.7 billion years.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 16, 2012 |
 | In rare cases, a star’s core can undergo a series of events that creates a secondary planetary nebula inside the original one.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published: November 16, 2012 |
 | With the completion of the prime mission, Kepler now has collected enough data to begin finding Earth-sized planets with a one-year orbit around stars similar to the Sun.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 15, 2012 |
 | W44 is the product of a massive star that has reached the end of its life, and all that remains of the stellar behemoth is the spinning core of a neutron star and a supernova remnant.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: November 15, 2012 |
 | Astronomers identified the massive cluster of young stars NGC 1980 to be a clearly separate entity from the main cluster of the most-studied star formation region in the galaxy.
By Canada-France-Hawaii Corp., Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: November 14, 2012 |
 | This planet’s comparative proximity, and the absence of a bright star close to it, has allowed the team to study its atmosphere in great detail.
By ESO, Garching, Germany, Canada-France-Hawaii Corp., Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: November 14, 2012 |
 | First time, researchers can see how dark energy worked at a time before the universe's current acceleration started.
By Sloan Digital Sky Survey Press Office in Baltimore, Maryland
Published: November 13, 2012 |
 | Scientists propose that the mysterious gas surrounding 49 Ceti comes from a massive disk-shaped region around the star that is similar to the Sun's Kuiper Belt.
By University of California - Los Angeles
Published: November 12, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, a study confirmed that binary star systems can cause the stunningly symmetric patterns around planetary nebulae, astronomers discovered an exoplanet whose orbit around its host star is at a similar distance to Earth’s orbit around the Sun, Cassini scientists witness Saturn's moon Titan glowing in the dark,
and
more.
Published: November 9, 2012 |
 | Deep observations by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are probing how stellar “star factories” form and evolve.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 9, 2012 |
 | The study confirms that precessing accretion disks within binary systems cause the stunningly symmetric patterns around planetary nebulae like Fleming 1.
By ESO, Garching, Germany
Published: November 8, 2012 |
 |
This year’s show occurs under prime conditions November 17.
By Michael E. Bakich
Published: November 8, 2012 |
 | The exoplanet’s orbit around its host star is at a similar distance to Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
By University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Published: November 8, 2012 |
 | Scientists find that the production of stars in the universe as a whole has been continuously declining over the past 11 billion years, being 30 times lower today than at its likely peak.
By Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: November 7, 2012 |
 | An emerging view proposes that asteroid collisions with planets may provide a boost to the birth and evolution of complex life.
By STScl, Baltimore, Maryland, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, Royal Astronomical Society, United Kingdom
Published: November 7, 2012 |
 | Scientists’ best guess is that the glow results from deeper-penetrating cosmic rays or from light emitted due to some kind of chemical reaction deep in the atmosphere.
By Cassini Imaging Central Lab, Boulder, Colorado, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: November 6, 2012 |
 | Findings suggest that the loss of a fraction of the atmosphere has been a significant factor in the evolution of the planet.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 6, 2012 |
 | The images captured by Mars Express show a portion of the region that displays multiple fluvial, glacial, and wind-driven features.
By ESA, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Published: November 5, 2012 |
 | The nucleus of Comet Hergenrother has separated into at least four pieces, resulting in an increase in dust material in its coma.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Published: November 5, 2012 |
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In the past seven days, SpaceX completed its first commissioned cargo mission to the International Space Station, astronomers discovered the most distant superluminous supernova, Curiosity's first soil studies helped fingerprint martian minerals,
and
more.
Published: November 2, 2012 |
 | The discovery offers the rare possibility of observing the explosions of the first stars to form after the Big Bang.
By W. M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, Hawaii
Published: November 2, 2012 |
 | Scientists have established the total amount of light from all the stars that have ever shown.
By NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Published: November 2, 2012 |
 | Astronomers have constructed the most realistic 3-D model of the star-forming dark cloud Barnard 68.
By Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany
Published: November 1, 2012 |
 | Carbon-rich asteroids have been splattering dark material on Vesta’s surface over a long period of time.
By Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Published: November 1, 2012 |
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