SUNSET: 
Astro News Briefs: June 27–July 3
Comet award winners and Mars radar ready to roll.
One Big Ball of Rock
This illustration, by exoplanet researcher Gregory Laughlin, attempts to be 'at least marginally scientifically accurate,' he says. The planet's night side should be so hot that it glows from dull red to bright orange-hot, depending on how deep we see into its expected refractory cloud layers. 'It's much hotter than,…
Amateur Detects New Transiting Exoplanet
This artist's rendition shows the size of HD 149026b as it crosses the face of its Sunlike star. It blocks only 1/300 of the star's light, barely enough to be detectable by amateur astronomers.Painting by Lynette Cook. A day before an international team announced a new transiting planet orbiting the…
Deep Impact Makes a Big Splash
Deep Impact successfully slammed its impactor into comet Tempel 1 in the early monring hours of July 4th.
Where to See NASA's Comet Crash in the Sky
On Sunday night, July 3rd, NASA's Deep Impact probe will slam into Comet Tempel 1. You may not be able to see the comet brighten without binoculars or a telescope, but anyone can see the place in the sky where it happens.
Watching Comet Tempel 1 — and Deep Impact
Glowing at 10th magnitude in the evening sky, the target of the Deep Impact mission awaits viewing with a medium-size telescope. Use our charts to find it.
Astro Image in the News:
Comet Dress Rehearsal
Hubble takes a look at Comet Tempel 1 before "Deep Impact."
Astro News Briefs: June 6–12
Deep Impact's Vision
Bogus Mars Chain Letter
Astro News Briefs: April 4–10
Rover mission extended, new names for Jupiter's moons, and more.
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.
