SUNSET: 
Meet Rigel, Orion's Blue Suede Shoe
The seventh brightest star in the sky, blue-white Rigel shines brilliantly at the left foot of Orion and is actually a trio: a supergiant orbited by a pair of Sun-like stars.
Paintballs Clarify What Happens When an Asteroid Hits Earth’s Ocean
Coastal waves from mid-sized asteroid impacts might be more like a storm surge than a wall of watery destruction, according to NASA experiments with paintballs.
A Chilly Super-Earth May Orbit Barnard's Star
One of the closest stars to the Sun hosts a planet at least three times as massive as our own where temperatures might be just low enough to freeze liquid water.
The Case of the Vanishing Nebula
Now you see it, now you don't. McNeil's Nebula in Orion has disappeared, thanks to a drastic reduction in brightness from the protostar that usually provides illumination.
Puny Star Might Be Specimen from Early Universe
A low-mass sun with few elements heavier than helium provides hope that the Galaxy might contain survivors from the very first generation of stars.
Amateur Don Machholz Discovers His 12th Comet! (Updated)
Arizona comet hunter Don Machholz did it again! He discovered his 12th comet only two mornings ago. Set your alarm, grab your scope, and take a look.
Dust Storm Electricity Might Forge Perchlorates on Mars
Electrostatic discharge in a simulated dusty Martian environment yields perchlorates — a potential energy source for microbial life — at abundances 1,000 times greater than sunlight alone.
Speeding White Dwarfs May Point to Past Explosions
A recent study has discovered three of the fastest stars — white dwarfs — known in the Milky Way. But these stars may be more than just speeders — they might also be evidence of how Type Ia supernovae occur.
Evidence Mounts for a Magellanic Collision
Astronomers have suspected for some time that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds collided in the recent past. The Gaia space telescope provides striking new evidence for a head-on collision.
Gas Seen Moving Near the Event Horizon
Astronomers have detected three flares from near our galaxy’s central black hole that look like gas closely orbiting the unseen object.
New Horizons On Approach to the First Exploration of a Kuiper Belt Object
Take a look behind the scenes as the New Horizons team gears up for the historic first flyby of a body in the remote Kuiper Belt, in this first of a four-part series from the mission's Principal Investigator Alan Stern.
Odd Jets Might Signal Dual Black Holes
Off-kilter, curved, and otherwise unusual beams of plasma from galaxies’ cores might track the dueling dances of two supermassive black holes.
Dusk for Dawn: NASA's Groundbreaking Mission Comes to an End
After 11 Years, NASA's Dawn mission to explore Vesta and Ceres is about to come to an end.
Tour November's Sky: Cassiopeia's Clan
This month's astronomy podcast takes you on a tour of a dysfunctional "royal family" in the northern sky — along with tips for viewing two meteor showers.
Ancient Merger Wreckage in the Milky Way
Mounting evidence indicates that our galaxy smashed up another smaller galaxy roughly 10 billion years ago.
The Kepler Space Telescope Comes to an End
NASA's planet-hunting telescope has run out of fuel after a nine-year mission that found more than 2,600 planets orbiting other stars along with thousands more worlds yet to be confirmed.
After Brief Shutdown, Hubble Goes Back to Work
Following three weeks of downtime, engineers have cleared out a mechanical blockage in one of Hubble's gyroscopes and returned the observatory to full science operations.
Saturn's Moon Dione Has Some Weird Stripes
Long straight parallel lines on the satellite's surface could be droppings from Saturn's rings, one of the moons, or a passing comet, researchers suggest.
Trojan Asteroids Are in a Class of Their Own
Hordes of debris trapped by Jupiter and Neptune have distinct colors that mark them as possibly the last remnants of the material that built the giant planets.
Planets Appear More Massive Than Disks Where They Form
Infant worlds might gobble up dust quickly, the interstellar environment might feed protoplanetary disks, or planet-building dust could be hiding in plain sight. Although disks of gas and dust around young stars are a necessary precursor to planet formation, an expanded survey of stars in our Galaxy confirms earlier doubts…
