Celestial News & Events

The Disappearing Black Drop

When you observe the upcoming transit of Venus on June 5th or 6th, will you see the black drop?

Moon base model

Astronomy & Observing News

NASA to Abandon Plan for Moon Base?

Comments from NASA's acting administrator hint that the agency may decide to skip building a Moon base and send humans farther out into the solar system instead.

Astronomy & Observing News

Spitzer Reveals Greedy Stellar Babies in Trifid

The Spitzer Space Telescope works in infrared light, which allows it to peer through the dusty veil of the Trifid Nebula (M20) to see 150 new objects, mostly newborn stars. This image was created from observations on March 31 and April 11, 2004. Red represents 5.8 and 8.0 micron bands,…

Astronomy & Observing News

Disk Demolition Derby

An artist depicts the collision of two planetesimals in the disk around Vega. Such collisions, which generate huge amounts of dust, occurred frequently in the early days of our solar system's Kuiper Belt.Courtesy NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle (SSC / Caltech). Two teams of astronomers have reported signs of…

Astronomy & Observing News

The First Exoplanet Image?

Glowing dimly in infrared light, this double object seems to consist of a brown dwarf and a super-Jupiter.

Astronomy & Observing News

Solar Spicule Mystery Solved

Upward jets of gas appear as a 'lawn' of short, dark spicules on the right side of this false-color image, taken in red hydrogen-alpha light on June 16, 2003. This wavelength shows detail in the chromosphere, the lower atmosphere silhouetted on the Sun's bright surface below. Visible at upper left…

Astronomy & Observing News

Stellar Vibrations Missing

New spacecraft results suggest that Procyon might not experiencing pulsations after all.

Astronomy & Observing News

Lensing Star Weighed

Astronomers have a new set of scales for measuring the masses of stars — by watching the way a star's gravity bends the light of a distant background star.

black drop

Where Was the Black Drop?

Reports around the world vary dramatically as to the reality of a black-drop effect during the Venus transit.

Celestial News & Events

LINEAR Puts in an Appearance

Comet LINEAR is visible to midnorthern observers until late June, after which it becomes a Southern Hemisphere object.

Solar System

Moon Study Tracks Changes in Earth's Cloud Cover

Scientists are looking to the Moon to learn about Earth's climate change.

Astronomy & Observing News

An "Impossibly" Young Planet?

The Spitzer Space Telescope finds evidence of a planet too young to have formed the expected way.

Astronomy & Observing News

Opportunity Enters Endurance Crater

NASA engineers have decided that driving a Mars rover into a geology-rich crater is worth the risks.

Astronomy & Observing News

Amateur Images Venus's Surface

In a first for amateur astronomy, a backyard observer has captured images of the eternally cloud-shrouded surface of Venus.

Astronomy & Observing News

Asteroids "Sunburn" with Age

A new study shows that the longer some asteroids are exposed to space, the redder their surfaces become.

Astronomy & Observing News

Chandra Probes Dark Energy

New X-ray observations have independently confirmed that the universe is dominated by dark energy.

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