SUNSET: 
Fomalhaut's Kuiper Belt
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, taken in visible light through a red filter, reveals a belt of icy dust grains surrounding Fomalhaut. The belt extends from 133 to 158 astronomical units from the star, and appears to have a sharp cutoff at both the…
Prospecting for Martian Ice
Scientists combined several images from Mars Express to create this 3-dimensional image of a 35-kilometer-wide (22-mile-wide) unnamed crater in the far northern hemisphere. A patch of water ice sits on the crater floor. The colors are very close to natural, but the vertical relief is exaggerated three times. Due to…
New Type of Exoplanet:
A Hybrid Earth-Uranus
An artist's concept of the seven-Earth-mass planet closely orbiting the red-dwarf star Gliese 876. In reality, the planet might have no atmosphere (like a giant Mercury), a thin atmosphere allowing a view of the surface as shown here, or a very thick atmosphere almost like Uranus or Neptune. Such a…
Pluto Reexamined
This true-color map shows how Pluto's surface varies in reflectivity. Eliot Young and his colleagues created this map from data obtained at the McDonald Observatory in Texas during periods when Pluto was being partially eclipsed by its moon Charon. Because the two worlds are tidally locked, the map only shows…
Opportunity Unstuck
One of Opportunity's cameras acquired this image shortly after ground controllers freed the rover from a small sand dune.Courtesy NASA / JPL.
Brown-Dwarf Binary May Challenge Theories
A tightly bound pair of sub-stars in Orion may throw models into disarray.
Telescope Enthusiasts Converge in California
Clear, dark skies and beautiful spring weather greeted the those who attended the annual Riverside Telescope Making Conference Astronomy Expo.
GALEX Provides Ultraviolet Goodies
Several ultraviolet events have caught the eye of NASA's space-based UV observatory.
News from Day 1 of the AAS Meeting
The first day of the American Astronomical Society's meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, yielded a flurry of exciting new science results.
Strongest Source of Gravitational Waves?
A pair of white dwarfs in Cancer could be the first thing that gravitational-wave detectors will see.
Astro Image in the News:
Spying on the Neighbors
Mars Global Surveyor took time to take pictures of two other spacecraft orbiting the red planet.
Amateurs Help Discover Exoplanet
Artist David A. Aguilar depicts the exoplanet that professional and amateur astronomers discovered recently by gravitational microlensing. The planet is about 3 times as massive as Jupiter, and it orbits its host star (upper right) at about 3 astronomical units. The moon is hypothetical.Courtesy David A. Aguilar (CfA). In a…
Canadian Amateurs Access Big Hawaiian Scopes
This richly detailed close-up of the stellar nursery RY Tauri some 450 light-years away was captured by the 8-meter Gemini North telescope as part of a contest for Canadian amateur astronomers. It shows the young, low-mass star (below center) emerging from the vast cloud of gas and dust from where…
NASA Budget Crisis Threatens Space Telescopes
Astronomers are worried that future space-astronomy missions will be downsized, delayed, or cancelled because of a financial crisis within the space agency.
Astro Image in the News:
Another Moon for Saturn
On May 1st the Cassini spacecraft chalked up a new Saturnian moon.
America's Young Astronomers Recognized
The Astronomical League recently announced the winners of its 2005 National Young Astronomer Award.
Caught At Last! Swift Pinpoints a
Short Gamma-Ray Burst
An orbiting gamma-ray observatory pins down a site for one of the universe's biggest mysteries.
NASA Resumes Work on Shuttle Flight to Hubble
NASA administrator Michael Griffin has told the Hubble servicing team to resume preparations for a possible shuttle flight to upgrade the telescope.
Mars Polar Lander Found at Last?
Mars Polar Lander disappeared without a trace on December 9, 1999. No one has seen any evidence of the ill-fated craft — until now.
12 New Saturnian Moons
The circled white dot is one of 12 newly discovered Saturnian moons. This satellite, temporarily designated S/2004 S11, is about 6 kilometers (4 miles) across.Courtesy David Jewitt / Scott Sheppard / Jan Kleyna. There was once a time when the discovery of a single new moon was a landmark event…
