SUNSET: 
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.
Deciding Hubble's Future
At Congress's request, an independent panel has recommended to NASA how Hubble should spend its final days.
Keck "Outriggers" Face Additional Roadblocks
A recent court asks NASA to reevaluate the impact of telescope construction atop Mauna Kea.
SOHO "Healthy" Despite Antenna Malfunction
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft's main antenna has malfunctioned — but the craft is still transmitting to Earth 80 percent of the time.
Solving the Puzzle of Gamma-Ray Bursts
The fading afterglow of the March 29th gamma-ray burst, seen 2.6 days later by the 1.3-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. By then the afterglow had faded to 17th magnitude — still bright enough to hide any trace of its underlying host galaxy.Courtesy Joshua Bloom et…
A Close-up Look at the Young Universe
A "supernova factory" in a giant, dense star cluster gives a look at how globular clusters formed some 12 billion years ago.
X-Raying Planetary Birthplaces
Two different types of X-ray emission indicate stars with and without protoplanetary disks.
