Dark Days for Dark Energy?
Some say no new mystery force is needed to explain why the universe's expansion is speeding up.
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.
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…
Enceladus's "Invisible" Atmosphere
Scientists using the Cassini orbiter's magnetometer have found a tenuous atmosphere around the water-ice-rich moon of Saturn.
The Rovers that Never Die
The Mars Exploration Rovers, nearly a year past the end of their primary mission, continue to amaze scientists.
Resurrecting Genesis
Scientists have salvaged solar wind particles from the Genesis spacecraft's twisted wreckage and shattered collection wafers.
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.…
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.
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…
Hans Bethe
(19062005)
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,…
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.
Watch a Spacecraft Buzzing Earth
European observers can catch the interplanetary Rosetta craft zipping by at 8th or 9th magnitude on March 4th.
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…
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.
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.
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…
Astro News Briefs: January 1016
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…
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…