5301–5320 of 6,046 results

Astronomy & Observing News

Dark Days for Dark Energy?

Some say no new mystery force is needed to explain why the universe's expansion is speeding up.

Astronomy & Observing News

Hale-Bopp: The Comet That Doesn't Quit

Eight years after Comet Hale-Bopp dazzled astronomers as it passed through the inner solar system, the dirty snowball is still detectable.

Astronomy & Observing News

Exoplanets: The Heat Is On

Not a pleasant place to be: a hot Jupiter hovers near its parent star. This composite image combines art of an exoplanet and a TRACE satellite image of magnetic loops of hot gas on the Sun.Courtesy David Aguilar (CfA) / TRACE / NASA. For the first time ever, astronomers have…

Astronomy & Observing News

Enceladus's "Invisible" Atmosphere

Scientists using the Cassini orbiter's magnetometer have found a tenuous atmosphere around the water-ice-rich moon of Saturn.

Astronomy & Observing News

The Rovers that Never Die

The Mars Exploration Rovers, nearly a year past the end of their primary mission, continue to amaze scientists.

Astronomy & Observing News

Resurrecting Genesis

Scientists have salvaged solar wind particles from the Genesis spacecraft's twisted wreckage and shattered collection wafers.

Astronomy & Observing News

Gusev Crater's True Nature

On March 10, 2005, Spirit's rear hazard-avoidance camera captured a Martian dust devil (arrowed) about 1.1 kilometers (0.7 mile) from the rover. Over the weekend, a dust devil apparently cleared off most of the dust on Spirit's solar panels, which has increased the rover's power output by about 50 percent.…

Astronomy & Observing News

President Nominates New NASA Chief

President George W. Bush has nominated physicist and aerospace engineer Michael D. Griffin to serve as the next administrator of the US space agency.

Astronomy & Observing News

The Most Massive Stars

The Arches Cluster is the most spectacular young star cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy. Located about 25,000 light-years away near the galactic center, it is home to about a dozen stars with more than 100 solar masses. The high resolution of this Hubble Space Telescope image, taken by the…

Astronomy & Observing News

Hans Bethe
(1906—2005)

Hans Bethe earned the Nobel Prize for determining how stars generate energy. This research remains one of the greatest contributions to our understanding of the universe.Courtesy Cornell University. Hans Bethe, one of the towering figures of 20th-century astrophysics, died on Sunday, March 6th, at his home in Ithaca, New York,…

Astronomy & Observing News

Astro Image in the News:
Rosetta Buzzes Earth

Many sky photographers caught the little Rosetta probe as it whizzed by Earth on its way to landing on a comet in 2014.

Celestial News & Events

Watch a Spacecraft Buzzing Earth

European observers can catch the interplanetary Rosetta craft zipping by at 8th or 9th magnitude on March 4th.

Astronomy & Observing News

Einstein Passes New Tests

A binary pulsar system provides an excellent laboratory for testing some of the most bizarre predictions of general relativity. The two pulsars in the J0737-3039 system are actually very far apart compared to their sizes. In a true scale model, if the pulsars were the sizes of marbles, they would…

Astronomy & Observing News

Saturn Lights

Strange aurora patterns viewed on Saturn are unlike anything ever seen in the solar system.

Astronomy & Observing News Astro Image in the News:
Frozen Lakes in Mars's Midsection"}'>

Astro Image in the News:
Frozen Lakes in Mars's Midsection

Observations by the Mars Express orbiter reveal what appears to be a large frozen lake covered with a layer of volcanic ash.

Astronomy & Observing News

Picture Imperfect: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Like Hubble before it, Spitzer has flawed optics. But in this case the problem is mostly aesthetic, with little or no impact on the observatory's scientific capabilities.

Astronomy & Observing News

The Brightest Blast

This illustration, which is based on the latest scientific thinking, represents how a magnetar might appear if we could view it up close with X-ray vision. But this is not something anyone would want to do. Magnetars are neutron stars with magnetic fields so powerful that they could kill a…

Astronomy & Observing News

Astro News Briefs: January 10–16

Spacecraft Sets Out to Strike a Comet January 12, 2005 | NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 1:47 p.m. Eastern time today and began its six-month journey to strike a comet. If all goes as planned, Deep Impact will reach 9P/Tempel 1 in July and release…

Astronomy & Observing News

Orion Telescopes Sold to Imaginova

The headquarters of Orion Telescopes & Binoculars in Watsonville, California.Sky & Telescope photograph by J. Kelly Beatty. In a move that caught the astronomical community by surprise, today Imaginova Corp. announced its purchase of Orion Telescopes & Binoculars. Based in Watsonville, California, Orion is a major manufacturer and distributor of…