SUNSET: 
Mixed Message from Asteroid Belt
New compositional map of the main asteroid belt shows that minor planets are not strongly grouped by composition, as had been thought, but instead are mixed up.
Shedding Light on Circumbinary Systems
Astronomers are beginning to understand the unlikely formation and dangerous survival of exoplanets circling binary stars.
First Mercury Globe Now Available
Sky & Telescope announces the first-ever globe of Mercury, pieced together from the latest images taken by the Messenger spacecraft. It's now available on our online store!
"Dwarf Planet" Ceres Exhales Water
There'll be a new wrinkle facing NASA's Dawn spacecraft when it reaches Ceres next year: what's causing this big round ball to give off puffs of water vapor?
The End of Rosetta's Big Sleep
Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft woke up after a 957-day-long hibernation to begin the most comprehensive comet study to date. Part of its mission: attempt to place an instrumented lander on a comet’s nucleus for the first time.
Small Asteroid 2014 AA Hits Earth
Spotted on New Year's Eve by a telescope in Arizona, a small asteroid struck Earth over the Atlantic Ocean — apparently unnoticed — less than one day later.
Chang'e 3 Brings Rover to Lunar Surface
For the first time since 1976, a spacecraft has landed safely on the Moon. Within hours, the Chinese spacecraft Chang'e 3 had deployed an instrumented rover.
Curiosity Finds a Once-Habitable Mars
Ancient Mars seems to have had all the necessities as a comfy habitat for microbial life.
Plumes on Europa
New Hubble Space Telescope observations provide the best evidence yet that Jupiter's icy moon spits out water vapor from its surface. If real, such plumes could reach more than 100 miles above the little world's surface and rain down an extraterrestrial form of snow.
Comet ISON: What We've Learned
Comet ISON's untimely demise didn’t prevent scientists from studying it, revealing the comet to be smaller than previously thought and harboring high concentrations of carbon.
New View of Saturn's Hexagon
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured phenomenal images of the gigantic weather system at Saturn's north pole. This so-called "hexagon" is nearly three times wider than Earth is.
So It Ends for Comet ISON
After more than a year of anticipation, there is no dazzle, only a dud.
China Launches Lunar Mission
If all goes well, on December 14th the Moon will host its first soft-landing spacecraft since 1976.
Comet ISON Becomes a Nail-Biter
Is the comet dying, just three days before its closest pass by the Sun? There are signs that its nucleus has stopped producing anything.
Comet ISON Diving Sunward as its Moment of Truth Nears
Tiny, greenish white, and harder to see every day, Comet ISON is descending toward the sunrise horizon and its November 28th perihelion.
MAVEN Heads to Mars
NASA's next orbiter has successfully launched and is en route to the Red Planet. When it arrives, it will pry into the secrets of Mars's climate, both past and present, and hopefully reveal how the cold, dry world lost most of its ancient atmosphere.
The Next New Meteor Shower
Astronomers confirm that debris from Comet 209P/LINEAR should create a sky show on May 24, 2014 — but it looks less likely that a “storm” is in the works.
"Tails" of a Very Unusual Asteroid
What at first looked to be a comet that had snuck its way into the asteroid belt now appears to be a bizarre, fast-spinning space rock that's occasionally shedding tails of dust.
New Chelyabinsk Results Yield Surprises
The mega-meteor that exploded over Russia last February has provided impact specialists with some surprising — and sobering — revelations.
Indian Mars Mission Launches
India's first mission to the Red Planet launched successfully November 5th from a barrier island off the country's coastline. The mission will study Mars's atmosphere and surface and is an important milestone for the country's space agency.
