SUNSET: 
Mars Polar Lander Still Missing
May's purported discovery of the missing Mars Polar Lander has been disproven with new image of the "crash site."
Sponge Rock
Saturn's odd-shaped moon is making astronomers scratch their heads.
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Astro Image in the News:
Partial Lunar Eclipse
Many watched as the full Moon skimmed the edge of the Earth's shadow on Monday morning, October 17, 2005.
A Mars Record for the Ages
On August 27, 2003, at 9:51 Universal Time, the centers of Earth and Mars will be only 34,646,418 miles apart. Has Mars ever been this close before?
A Ring to Remember: the October 3rd Annular Eclipse
The unusually thick annular eclipse of the Sun over Spain and Africa wowed millions.
Hayabusa Closes In on Asteroid Itokawa
Now hovering just 7 km from its target, a Japanese spacecraft is readying to sample the surface — amid growing concerns about the craft's stabilization system.
The October 3rd Annular Solar Eclipse
Parts of Africa will see a "ring eclipse" of the Sun, while Europe, all of Africa, and much of South Asia get a partial eclipse.
Astro News Briefs: September 26 – October 2
Mars Express mission extended and a new comet for Caroline Herschel?
The Best Transiting Exoplanet Yet
Just 0.3° due east of the familiar Dumbbell Nebula, M27 in Vulpecula, shines the 7.7-magnitude star HD 189733 with a very hot Jupiter in close orbit around it. Binoculars are all you need to see the star, a pale orange K dwarf 63 light-years away. The star is at right…
Fast Cosmic Blasts Linked to Binary Mergers
Artist Dana Berry depicts the gamma-ray burst (GRB) that occurs when a black hole swallows a neutron star. Click on the image above to view an animation of a neutron star falling into a black hole, triggering a short GRB (it might take a minute or two for the movie…
Astronomers Discover "10th Planet"
Astronomers have discovered a distant Kuiper Belt Object larger than Pluto.
A Moon for the "10th Planet"
The largest Kuiper Belt object (KBO) in the solar system, 2003 UB313, isn’t wandering through space alone — it has a moon.
Andromeda's Black Hole Surrounded by Young Stars
The Andromeda Galaxy, about 2.5 million light-years away, contains a black hole with the mass of 140 million Suns that has a strange disk (blue) of young hot stars within 1/2 light-year of it.John Kormendy (University of Texas at Austin) / Ralf Bender (University Observatory, Munich, Germany) It's no secret…
Astro Image in the News:
Giant African Scope Sees First Light
Courtesy SALT. On September 1st the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) — the largest single telescope in the Southern Hemisphere — recorded its first light from the stars. Modeled after the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in western Texas, SALT's hexagonal 10-by-11-meter mirror consists of 91 hexagonal segments and has…
An Ansel Adams Encore
At Yosemite National Park, more than 200 photographers and many media crews showed up to try shooting a rare repeat of Adams' famous "Autumn Moon."
The October 17th Partial Lunar Eclipse
Western North America and Hawaii get a slight eclipse of the Moon on the morning of Monday, October 17th.
Big Sunspot Group Spawns Flares, Auroras
A very active sunspot group is rotating to face Earth. Radio disruptions have already begun, and auroras may light the night skies.
