SUNSET: 
Watching GRAIL's Demise
When a pair of small spacecraft crashed into a mountain on the Moon last December 17th, NASA's eagle-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter looked on — and recorded not only the debris kicked up by each impact but also the tiny craters they made.
Too Much Ado About Daylight-Saving Time
Still controversial, the annual switch to daylight saving time is annoying to backyard astronomers — and probably doesn't save any energy after all.
Mars has Front-Row Seat for 2014 Comet
Comet Siding Spring (C/2013 A1) has a small chance of striking the Red Planet in October 2014. It'll likely miss — but come close enough to put on a spectacular show for spacecraft on or near the planet.
S&T's Audio Sky Tour for April 2013
Celebrate "Global Astronomy Month" by strolling outside to take in all the evening sky sights. Jupiter and Sirius frame Orion nicely in the west, while Saturn is low in the east an hour or two after sunset.
The Moon Meets (and Hides) Spica
On Thursday, February 28th, late-evening skywatchers in the Americas can see a waning gibbous Moon nestled very close to Virgo's alpha star. Those in Central and South America might even see Spica wink out!
"Black Rain" on Callisto and Ganymede
Those distant, dinky irregular moons of Jupiter are likely responsible for deep drifts of dark dirt on the two largest Galilean satellites.
Curiosity Digs In During Drill Test
Six months after landing inside Gale crater, NASA's beefy rover finished the last major equipment check when it drilled deeply into a Martian rock.
S&T's Audio Sky Tour for January 2013
Jupiter is the unrivaled king of the evening sky this month. Use it as a benchmark to find a pair of star clusters and other interesting celestial sights.
S&T's Audio Sky Tour for March 2013
Spring arrives on March 20th, astronomically speaking, and for a few days beforehand you have a chance to see Comet Pan-STARRS low in the west soon after sunset. Meanwhile, Jupiter is still riding high in the evening, along with Orion, the Hunter, and Sirius, the "Dog Star."
(Really) Cool View of Andromeda Galaxy
Nearing the end of its mission, ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has delivered a highly detailed map of extremely cold gas and dust in the iconic Andromeda Galaxy.
Fire Damages Siding Spring Observatory
Yesterday bushfires swept through Australia's Warrumbungle National Park, home to Siding Spring Observatory. The telescopes there appear to have escaped harm, but some support facilities and staff homes were destroyed.
NGC 6872: The Largest Spiral Galaxy
Our Milky Way ranks near the top in the pecking order of spiral galaxies, but it's no match for an enormous "island universe" in the constellation Pavo that is more than 500,000 light-years across.
Asteroid Apophis Takes a Pass in 2036
The early results are in from a giant radar dish tracking asteroid 99942 Apophis, and it's good news for planet Earth: there's essentially no chance that this threatening object will hit us in 2036.
A Chunk of Martian Crust — on Earth!
The meteorite known as NWA 7034 is a 2-billion-year-old sample of the Red Planet's crust, with unique geochemical properties and far higher water content than that of any other Martian meteorite.
S&T's Audio Sky Tour for February 2013
Evening skies feature two bright planets: Mercury, which lurks low in the west after sunset around the 16th, and Jupiter, which reigns high in the southern sky all month long.
Triple Stars in Far-Flung Relationships
New simulations suggest that sometimes "three's a crowd" when stars form — and that chaotic interactions can leave two stars close together and fling a third (such as reddish Proxima Centauri, at left) into a distant orbit.
Sutter's Mill: A Meteoritic Gold Mine
When a brilliant daylight fireball broke apart over California on April 22nd, professional and amateur meteorite hunters sprang into action — and their effort to recover fragments quickly has been dramatically rewarded.
Sir Patrick Moore, 1923-2012
Britain's celebrated skywatcher and night-sky popularizer, synonymous with astronomy worldwide, died peacefully on Sunday at age 89.
Gravity Probes "See" Deep Lunar Secrets
Just by circling the Moon every 2 hours while keeping hyper-accurate track of each other's motions, twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow have mapped the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail — and opened a window on the Moon's ancient, battered interior.
Voyager's On-ramp to Interstellar Space
Now more than 11 billion miles from home, NASA's long-lived interplanetary probe is immersed in a flow of particles coming directly from beyond the heliosphere — an experience that mission scientists have hoped for since the 1970s.
