SUNSET: 
Comet Kudo-Fujikawa Rounds the Sun
The comet has entered the field of view of the Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory's LASCO C3 coronagraph.
Crescent Moon Joins Three Planets at Dawn
The waning crescent Moon helps point the way to Mars, Venus, and Mercury before sunrise on Monday through Wednesday mornings.
The Moon's Youngest Crater?
The mystery surrounding a lunar flash seen and photographed by an amateur astronomer in 1953 may finally be over — but questions remain.
European Virtual Observatory One Step Nearer
Courtesy AVO During a press conference held at Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom on January 20th, journalists, astronomers, and potential European Union financial backers got a real-time demonstration of the prototype Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) software. The groundbreaking event marked the conclusion of the first year of the…
Comet NEAT Outward Bound
Comet NEAT put on a fine show as it rounded the Sun. Now Southern Hemisphere observers wait for it to reappear in the west after sunset.
A Mistaken Case of Ring Around the Collar
The European Southern Obsevratory's Very Large Telescope Antu captured this view of the ringed ice giant Uranus.
Rosetta Grounded by Rocket Worries
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft was supposed to be on its way to Comet Wirtanen by now &$151; but a failure of its launch vehicle last month may keep this spacecraft grounded for years.
Astro News Briefs: January 13–19
Planet-Hunting Auction Opens for Bids January 14, 2003 | Ever wanted to spend a night at the controls of one of the world's largest telescopes, searching for planets orbiting distant stars? Now you can join University of California, Berkeley, astronomer Geoffrey Marcy and his team for a night at the…
A Star Prepares to Blow Its Top
Easily found with the naked eye, 4th-magnitude Rho Cassiopeiae may be getting ready for an enormous mass ejection in the next few months.
Astro News Briefs: January 6–12
A Not-So-Hot Jupiter? January 9, 2003 | Hot Jupiters may not be so hot after all. These giant planets, orbiting sunlike stars at extremely close distances, ought to be strong infrared emitters because of their high temperatures. But a team led by Drake Deming (Goddard Space Flight Center) failed to…
Interstellar Reflections
New images from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal unprecedented detail in a light echo expanding around an explosive variable star in Monoceros.
Aussie Fires Destroy Mount Stromlo Observatory
One of Australia's premier astronomy facilities has been virtually wiped out by the worst wildfires in Australian history.
Did Pluto Take a Punch?
A Hubble Space Telescope image snapped in 1994 easily resolves Pluto and its moon, just 0.9 arcsecond apart. Charon's orbit is about 39,300 kilometers in diameter — but astronomers are surprised that it's not a perfect circle.Courtesy R. Albrecht (ESA/ESTEC) and NASA. If David J. Tholen (University of Hawaii) is…
Bending Light
Hubble's new camera has taken the deepest-ever look through a gravitational lens, getting a fun-house view of the early universe.
A New Way to Find Planets
Astronomers announce the first confirmation of a "hot Jupiter" discovered by its silhouette crossing the face of its star.
Comet Kudo-Fujikawa Near the Sun
The comet passes through perihelion on January 29th. Although it will be impossible to observe, there's another way to follow its progress.
Looking for HEROs
The light from a very distant Hyper-Extremely Red Object, designated HERO1, has been redshifted so much that it can be seen in the near-infrared (right) but not at visible wavelengths (left). HERO1 is located in the sky very close to a radio source, known as 53W002, that is more than…
Coolest Star Ever
A super-dim brown dwarf in Eridanus glows in the infrared at a temperature of only 410° Celsius.
Belly of the Beast
The center of our Milky Way galaxy swarms with gas clouds and millions of stars and is anchored by a supermassive black hole. Only objects that emit X-rays appear in this new image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite. The black hole is embedded in the brightest point at center.…
Ring Around the Galaxy
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is being carried out with a 2.5-meter (100-inch) telescope in New Mexico, seen here at sunset with project director John Peoples. When finished, the SDSS will be a fundamental resource used by astronomers worldwide for many years to come. The newly discovered ring around…
