SUNSET: 
Pluto's Fake Moon
Astronomers think a small body in the Kuiper Belt might be temporarily spiraling around Pluto — well, that's what it would look like if you were standing on Pluto, anyway.
Dawn Bids Vesta Adieu
With a gentle, constant nudge from its ion-propulsion system, NASA's asteroid explorer has departed its first target and begins a 2½-year cruise to the second one.
Science All Around at the IAU
Jay Pasachoff blogs about his experience at the second week of IAU's General Assembly in Beijing, taking in talks on everything from the age of the universe to the history of sunspots.
Messenger Hits Eighth Birthday
NASA's emissary to Mercury just celebrated the eighth anniversary of its launch from Cape Canaveral in 2004. Here's a recap of some of the stuff we've learned about Mercury since Messenger arrived at the Iron Planet.
Curiosity Lands in Gale Crater
After a perilous and complicated descent to the Red Planet's surface, Curiosity has radioed "A-OK" to an anxious mission team waiting back on Earth.
Pluto's Moons: Five and Counting
When NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto in three years, it'll have one more object to check out: a tiny fifth moon discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Titan's Latest Twist: A Hidden Ocean
Saturn's biggest moon already boasts a dense atmosphere, vast dune fields, and lakes full of hydrocarbons. Now scientists have evidence for a deep ocean beneath its icy crust.
Titan's Tropical "Oases"
With a surface temperature hundreds of degrees below zero, Saturn's biggest moon is hardly a vacation paradise. But new Cassini results suggest that future visitors might be able to splash around in some liquid-methane lakes near Titan's equator.
The "Exoplanet" Venus
Observing the Transit of Venus won’t be just a memorable experience. Astronomers hope the event will help them understand alien worlds around other stars, too.
Dawn Confirms Vesta's Link to Meteorites
Spectral mapping by NASA's Dawn spacecraft has confirmed what planetary scientists have suspected for decades: hundreds of meteorites on Earth are rocks blasted from the surface of the second-largest asteroid.
IBEX's Slower Sun — and No Bow Shock
NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer has discovered that the Sun has no bow shock, overturning the basis for decades of scientific research.
Martian Dunes On the Move
Images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught dunes migrating across the Red Planet's surface, contradicting the common wisdom that the planet's current climate can't get sand moving on a large scale.
Streaking Snowballs in Saturn's F Ring
Self-destructing clumps of ice particles are changing the face of Saturn's bizarre F ring. No longer unseen ghosts, these theoretically predicted objects are putting on quite a show for NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
“Coronal Cells” in Sun’s Atmosphere
Astronomers have discovered an unexpected new feature on the Sun, leading to further insights about the solar magnetic field.
Watch April 16th's Solar Flare!
The Sun erupted yesterday in a magnificent display, and more might be on its way.
Sky & Telescope's New Moon Globe
The year-long effort was time consuming and tedious, but S&T's staff is proud to unveil the first wholly new globe of the lunar surface in more than four decades.
Outer-Planet Moons Found — and Lost
A decade ago, astronomers used big scopes and deep exposures to find dozens of new moonlets around Jupiter and Saturn. But due to orbital uncertainties, 17 of them appear to be lost.
Vesta: A Study in Black and White
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is scrutinizing the second-largest asteroid from close range. Yet some aspects of Vesta's surface — especially splashes of very bright and very dark material — are puzzling.
Did the Moon Come From Earth?
New findings show that the Moon might have incorporated more of Earth when it formed than previously thought — a problem for the widely accepted "big splat" hypothesis.
Exciting Event on Mars!
Observers are reporting an unusual event on the Red Planet, well placed for western U.S. residents this evening.
