SUNSET: 
Looking Below A Sunspot's Surface
The Michelson Doppler Imager aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory measures the sound speed and motions of gas under and around a sunspot. Red is hot gas; blue is cooler, denser gas. The newly discovered convective cycle around and under sunspots, indicated here with arrows, is what holds a spot…
Blue-Ribbon Panel Opposes NASA Control of Ground-based Astronomy
Committee finds that NSF and NASA astronomical funding should not be combined brought under one agency.
Building Planets in Plastic Bags
A science demonstration on the International Space Station may have solved a lingering question concerning planet formation.
Mars's Air Up There
By looking to the sky, the Mars Exploration Rovers hope to answer many lingering questions about the red planet's weather.
Stardust's Precious Comet Cargo
The Stardust spacecraft is coming home after collecting samples from Comet Wild 2.
Follow the Hematite
Astronomers now know the source of the hematite in Meridiani Planum.
A Mars "Soaked With Water"
The red arid terrain seen at the Opportunity landing site appears to have once been a locale capable of sustaining life.Courtesy NASA/JPL/Cornell. When the two Mars Exploration Rover missions were first envisioned, their mission was clear: find if and where water once persisted on Mars. To do this, Spirit landed…
A Cosmic Game of Peekaboo
It seems that McNeil's Nebula made a previous appearance in the 1960s.
Astro Image in the News:
A Taste of Things To Come
Spirit has taken the highest-resolution picture of Mars ever.
Plotting Spirit's Course
NASA scientists are gathering vital information about Spirit's, surroundings before taking the Mars rover out for its first drive.
The Asteroid and the Pea
Astronomers have directly detected a minute force that is slowly altering asteroid orbits.
Ejecting the Kuiper Belt
Perhaps the debris disk outside Neptune's orbit actually formed within the inner solar system.
Divining Lunar Water
New radar observations imply that the Moon is much drier than once thought.
NASA to Conduct Environmental Impact Statement for Mauna Kea
Construction of the Keck "outrigger" telescopes should proceed in late 2004 after NASA assesses the results of the rigorous study.
Where Are the Faintest Kuiper Belt Objects?
Astronomers used Kuiper Belt Object 2000 FV53 to guide the Hubble Space Telescope while searching for faint KBOs. The team found only three objects instead of the expected 85. Each of the discoveries is more than 100 times fainter than this KBO. Click on image for an animation.Courtesy NASA and…
Spotting Extrasolar Saturns
It is just a matter of time before astronomers find an extrasolar planet with Saturn-like rings.
Finding Waterworld
Could the first Earthlike planet found around another star really be a world made of water?
Amateur Discovers Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow
An amateur astronomer in South Africa was the first to beat professional astronomers to the detection of a gamma-ray burst afterglow.
