Latest science news in Astronomy & Space
Computers Predict Path of Tsunami Debris
Computer simulations have been accurate in predicting where debris from the 2011 tsunami in Japan would wash ashore, scientists say.
New star nursery spotted
A telescope in Antarctica has revealed a giant gas cloud in the early stages of formation, before any stars have been made.
Smart SPHERES are about to get a whole lot smarter
Smart devices -- such as tablets and phones -- increasingly are an essential part of everyday life on Earth. The same can be said for life off-planet aboard the International...
Planet-sized space weather explosions at Venus
Researchers recently discovered that a common space weather phenomenon on the outskirts of Earth's magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere, has much larger repercussions for Venus. The giant explosions, called hot flow...
Shocking behavior of a runaway star: High-speed encounter creates arc
Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in...
Tomorrow's Wearable Tech Straight Out of Star Trek
A hearing aid that wirelessly streams audio from an MP3 player? A pair of Google Glass with visual recognition? A bracelet that lets friends send each other "smiles"? These are...
Space History Photo: Dr. Robert Goddard
Dr. Robert Goddard, namesake for the Goddard Space Flight Center, is known as a pioneer in American Rocketry.
Curiosity Rover Drives Backward on Mars to Reduce Wheel Wear and Tear
The maneuver was designed to test out a strategy for reducing wear on the robot's six metal wheels, which have accumulated dings and holes at an increasing rate over the...
NASA deploys record-breaking 29 small satellites into orbit
(Phys.org) —A spectacular launch from Virginia's eastern shore recently resulted in the successful deployment of a record-breaking 29 small satellites into orbit, but that wasn't the only first for the...
Massive Neutrinos Resolve A Major Problem With The Standard Model Of Cosmology
Recent Planck spacecraft observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – the fading glow of the Big Bang – have highlighted a discrepancy between cosmological results and predictions from other...
Saturn and the Moon Pair Up Tonight: How to See Them
Early on Saturday morning (Feb. 22), if skies are clear, you’ll have an opportunity to catch sight of the last quarter moon pairing off the ringed wonder of the solar...
Cat Nights: See Lions and a Lynx in the Evening Sky
In our current late evening sky, we have three constellations that represent no fewer than four dogs. They're sharing space with three big cats, Leo, Leo Minor, and Lynx, which...
How to catch a satellite
Standard space dockings are difficult enough, but a future ESA mission plans to capture derelict satellites adrift in orbit. Part of an effort to control space debris, the shopping list...
Astronomers find solar storms behave like supernovae
Researchers have studied the behavior of the Sun's coronal mass ejections, explaining for the first time the details of how these huge eruptions behave as they fall back onto the...
Dark matter search: New calibration confirms LUX dark matter results
A new calibration of the Large Underground Xenon dark matter detector brought a 10-fold increase in calibration accuracy, confirming findings announced last October from the instrument's first 90-day run. If...
Voyager, the space triumph that nearly wasn't
The Voyager 1 spacecraft is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. Even if defined only by distance, the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory twin Voyagers are America's greatest space...
'Jelly Doughnut' Mars Rock Not Caused by Meteorite, Pictures Show
New photos of the Martian landscape further rule out a meteorite impact as the culprit behind the "jelly doughnut" rock that mysteriously appeared in front of one of NASA's Mars...
In Memoriam: Arthur M. Wolfe 1939-2014
Arthur M. Wolfe, an American astrophysicist who for a decade directed the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego and achieved widespread recognition for...
Real 'Death Star' Fires High-Energy Particle Beam At Sister Star | Video
A rare black widow binary star system consists of one of heaviest neutrons stars (~2X Sun Mass) known and a small companion star (12X Jupiter Mass) in the tightest orbit...
Spot Huge Asteroid Pallas in the Night Sky This Week
Although asteroids figure large in doomsday predictions, science fiction stories and video games, most stargazers have never actually seen one with their own eyes. This week you will get an...
Telescope detects rare form of nitrogen in comet ISON
A team of astronomers, led by Ph.D. candidate Yoshiharu Shinnaka and Professor Hideyo Kawakita, both from Kyoto Sangyo University, successfully observed the Comet ISON during its bright outburst in the...
How NASA's MAVEN Probe Will Investigate Mars Atmosphere Mystery
Mars' upper atmosphere is swarming with atoms, ions and molecules actively exiting the planet's sphere of influence. That's why NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft is headed there:...
NASA Mars Probe Shifts Orbit to Study Early-Morning Fogs and Frosts
A maneuver undertaken by NASA's Odyssey orbiter will allow the craft to begin a systematic study of temperature and atmospheric changes that occur around sunrise and sunset each day.
Neosat boosting Europe’s telecommunications by satellite
ESA is forging ahead with the Neosat next-generation satcom platform, planning the first flights within five years. The goal is for European satellite builders to capture at least half of...
Female astronauts have a lower threshold for space radiation than their male counterparts
Why are there more men than women in space? The answer might not be as straightforward as you first think. According to physiological models used by NASA, female astronauts have...
Apollo-Soyuz cosmonaut Valery Kubasov dies at 79
Soviet cosmonaut Valery Kubasov, who took part in the first docking of a US Apollo spacecraft with a Soviet Soyuz, has died aged 79, the Russian spacecraft corporation said Thursday.
NASA satellites see Arctic surface darkening faster
The retreat of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is diminishing Earth's albedo, or reflectivity, by an amount considerably larger than previously estimated, according to a new study that uses...
Clouds seen circling supermassive black hole
Astronomers see huge clouds of gas orbiting supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies. Once thought to be a relatively uniform, fog-like ring, the accreting matter instead forms clumps...