SUNSET: 
Mercury's Best Show of 2014
Mercury puts on its best show of the year for mid-northern latitudes around the end of January.
"Dwarf Planet" Ceres Exhales Water
There'll be a new wrinkle facing NASA's Dawn spacecraft when it reaches Ceres next year: what's causing this big round ball to give off puffs of water vapor?
New View of Lagoon Nebula
A new image of the Lagoon Nebula from the Paranal Observatory in Chile provides a stunning view the iconic object, which lies 5,000 light-years from Earth in Sagittarius.
F+W Media Acquires Sky & Telescope
For only the second time in its 73-year history, ownership of Sky & Telescope has changed hands. On Friday, January 17th, F+W Media, Inc. acquired New Track Media, LLC, the parent company of Sky & Telescope magazine.
The End of Rosetta's Big Sleep
Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft woke up after a 957-day-long hibernation to begin the most comprehensive comet study to date. Part of its mission: attempt to place an instrumented lander on a comet’s nucleus for the first time.
Galaxies Grow By Snacking
Evidence from observations and computer simulations supports a picture of galaxy growth that isn't dominated by the rough-and-tumble crashes of big galaxies. Instead, most of the universe's stellar metropolises appear to feed themselves with nibbles instead of feasts.
John Dobson, 1915-2014
Ask any long-time stargazer who has had the greatest impact on amateur astronomy, and the name of this barnstorming, telescope-making revolutionary will surely come up.
Starbugs: Mini Robots Go Observing
Miniature robots crawling along glass plates will help big surveys collect light from hundreds of thousands of galaxies.
Weather on Alien Worlds
From high-altitude clouds discovered on a super-Earth to massive, hurricane-force storms on a nearby brown dwarf, a bevy of results show that the age of “astrometeorology” is upon us.
Galaxies Trace Early Cosmic History
Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to peek into the universe's early eras using the light from galaxies that existed several hundred million years after the Big Bang.
Cosmologist Halton Arp (1927-2013)
A contentious yet gifted astronomer, Arp challenged a key underpinning of the Big Bang throughout the 1970s and 1980s and ultimately fell into disfavor among his colleagues.
Galactic Runts Carry Beefy Black Holes
Astronomers have found supermassive black holes in 151 dwarf galaxies, surprising expectations and providing a time machine into black hole formation.
Last Chance to Vote: Comet ISON Photo Contest
The comet's come and gone, we've selected our photo-contest finalists, now it's your turn! Tell us which photos you think should take 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. The polling booth closes on January 22nd.
Auroras in Our Future?
UPDATE: No significant auroras were reported Thursday morning following the Sun's whopper coronal mass ejection on January 7th. But there's still some chance of a mid-latitude light show as the hours go by.
Are Super-Earths Really Super?
Most alien planets are nothing like what we've got in the solar system. Scientists are homing in on these mysterious worlds to see what they’re made of.
Exotic Stellar Trio Includes Pulsar
Imagine a three-star system with two white dwarfs and a wildly spinning, superdense neutron star, all packed within a space no bigger than Earth's orbit.
Huge Sunspot Group Now Observable
The Sun is off to a fast start this new year. An enormous sunspot group, big enough to be seen (carefully) by eye, has rotated into view.
Deep Space Network's 50th Anniversary
Our lifeline to outer space began as a temporary, manually run network of radio dishes. NASA's Deep Space Network, which turns 50 this year, now communicates with spacecraft traversing the whole solar system.
A New Year's Resolution
Let's commit to stopping the spread of light pollution, the single greatest threat to our enjoyment of the night sky.
Small Asteroid 2014 AA Hits Earth
Spotted on New Year's Eve by a telescope in Arizona, a small asteroid struck Earth over the Atlantic Ocean — apparently unnoticed — less than one day later.
