SUNSET: 
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 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…
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…
Asteroid 2004 MN4: A Really Near Miss!
Radar results are in: this once-scary asteroid will become a naked-eye object when it skims by Earth in 2029.
Fly Me to the Moons
NASA's Cassini orbiter continues to take stunning images of Saturn's moons.
A Flurry of Exoplanet Discoveries
This artist's concept depicts a disk of gas and dust around a young brown dwarf. Low-mass disks like this should be capable of forming planetary systems with perhaps one gas giant and several Earth-size bodies.Courtesy NASA / JPL / Caltech. Discoveries of extrasolar planets are coming so fast and furious…
Hubble Takes a Hit
The rumors that circulated in late January were true: The Bush Administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 includes no money to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Astro Image in the News:
The Real Rhea
Courtesy NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute. Cassini's narrow-angle camera acquired this image of Saturn's moon Rhea on January 16th. With a diameter of 1,528 kilometers (949 miles), Rhea edges out Iapetus for being Saturn's second largest satellite, though it is less than half the size of Earth's Moon.…
SOHO Comet Catcher
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satellite is on the verge of spotting comet number 1,000.
Perseids Peak as Predicted
Preliminary analysis of the 2004 Perseid meteor shower confirms the forecast of an unusually brief and intense peak of meteor activity over Europe and Asia.
2004: An Excellent Year for the Perseids
The Perseid meteor shower, due to peak on the morning of August 12th, should put on a nice show — and may display a surprising new component.
The 2003 Perseids in Moonlight
This year the light from the full Moon will wash out the faint meteors belonging to this favorite shower.
A Great Year for the Perseids
The most dependable of all meteor showers reaches the peak of its display in a moonless sky.
