SUNSET: 
Opportunity Takes a Bow, Gets Some Rest
It's been eight years since NASA dropped twin rovers onto the Martian surface. Spirit succumbed to the planet's harsh conditions in 2010, but Opportunity continues to amaze mission scientists with its longevity and scientific productivity.
Eclipses in 2012
This year features two "central" eclipses of the Sun: an annular in May (visible from western U.S. states) and a total in November that you'll have to travel to Australia or the South Pacific to see.
Make the Effort for "Globe at Night"
This week you can join a worldwide campaign to measure the darkness of night skies everywhere. It's a fun, easy, and worthwhile activity for you and your family.
Farewell to Rossi's Explorer
Last week, NASA engineers reluctantly shut down the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, a largely unheralded orbiting outpost that relayed a steady stream of observations for 16 years.
Wanted: Meteorites from Mercury
Dynamical oddsmakers insist that several samples of the innermost planet, blasted into space from fresh craters such as Mena, should be lying somewhere on Earth. So where are they?
Eclipses in 2013
This year features two "central" eclipses of the Sun: an annular in May (visible from Australia and the South Pacific) and a "hybrid" (annular/total) in November that you'll have to travel to Africa to see.
GRAIL's Twins Safely Reach the Moon
Braking rockets fired on cue yesterday and today, placing twin spacecraft in lunar orbit. In the coming months, they will exploit the Moon's own gravity to revolutionize what we know about the lunar interior.
Tour January's Sky! | December 30th, 2011
With every New Year, millions of us resolve to do something, anything, different or better in the coming year. So let's resolve to get outside and enjoy the night sky more. Venus, Jupiter, and a host of winter stars await you.
S&T's Audio Sky Tour for January 2012
With every New Year, millions of us resolve to do something, anything, different or better in the coming year. So let's resolve to get outside and enjoy the night sky more. Venus, Jupiter, and a host of winter stars await you.
Meteor Showers in 2012
Sky & Telescope predicts that 2012's best meteor shower should be the Quadrantids in January, but this will also be a good year for the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December.
Kepler Finds Two "Deep-Fried" Planets
The incredibly successful Kepler spacecraft is discovering alien solar systems at a dizzying pace. Now it's found a system in which two planets have apparently survived a journey inside their host star, during its swollen red-giant phase.
Comet Lovejoy Keeps on Giving
Its place in astronomical folklore already secure, having skirted very near the Sun and survived last week. But resilient Comet Lovejoy (C/2011 W3) is still strutting its stuff — with twin tails nearly 20° long — in predawn skies for observers in the Southern Hemisphere. It's even drawing a crowd aboard the International Space Station!
NASA Taps a Rocket Scientist
With probes on the way to the Moon, Mars, and Pluto — and a multibillion-dollar space telescope gobbling up shrinking funds — astronomer and former astronaut John Grunsfeld agrees to take the helm of the space agency's science division.
Comet Lovejoy: A Solar Survivor
The odds were stacked against it, but a comet discovered just two weeks ago has passed just 116,000 miles from the Sun's surface and — like a celestial phoenix — reemerged into view. Here's the latest on what veteran observer John Bortle calls "one of the most extraordinary events in cometary history."
December 10th's Colorful Lunar Eclipse
The last total lunar eclipse for the next 2½ years was widely observed by skywatchers around the Pacific Rim.
S&T's Audio Sky Tour for December 2011
Venus lurks low in the western twilight after sunset. But after it gets good and dark, swing around to the east to see dazzling Jupiter, the King of Planets, amid a tower of brilliant early-winter stars that extends from the horizon to overhead.
Watch the Dawn Eclipse of the Moon, Dec. 10, 2011
Early risers in western North America can watch the full Moon go through a total eclipse before or during dawn this Saturday morning, December 10, 2011.
Comet Lovejoy's Date With Destiny
Discovered in late November by a veteran Australian comet-hunter, C/2011 W3 is a kamikaze comet that will pass just 116,000 miles from the Sun on December 16th. Will it dazzle us as it falls inward? Will it survive its close brush with the Sun? Amateur astronomers worldwide are holding their collective breath!
Kepler Finds a Possibly Habitable World
The hits just keep on coming for NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Today mission scientists announced that they've identified a thousand more candidate planets around other stars. One is Kepler-22 b, a world somewhat larger than Earth where you likely could walk around in shirtsleeve temperatures.
Comet Garradd in Transition
A decently bright visitor from the solar system’s fringe has lingered in the evening sky for months. As it nears perihelion, Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) will soon be seen better in northern morning skies before dawn.
