Latest science news in Astronomy & Space
What If Our Solar System Had Formed Closer to the Milky Way's Edge?
What if dinosaurs and Neanderthals had not gone extinct? What if the sun was twice as large? How 10 key moments in history could change the present.
Photos, data reveal Mercury's secrets
WASHINGTON, June 17 (UPI) -- Data from the U.S. space program's Messenger mission has provided a banquet of information on the planet Mercury, including clues about its origin, NASA...
Smashing! Huge Particle Collider Hits Data Milestone
We'll have to take physicists' word for it that "one inverse femtobarn" is a lot.
Scientists see sunspot "hibernation" but no Ice Age
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sunspot cycles -- those 11-year patterns when dark dots appear on the solar surface -- may be delayed or even go into "hibernation" for a while, a...
NASA satellite gallery shows Chilean volcano plume moving around the world
Since its eruption in early June, several NASA satellites have captured images of the ash plume from the eruption of the Chilean Volcano called Puyehue-Cordón Caulle and have tracked it...
How the Sun's 11-Year Solar Cycle Works
Solar physicists have a keen interest in studying changes in the sun's activity.
Dot Earth: Would Solar Lull Snuff Climate Action?
If a prediction of a protracted downturn in solar activity holds up, there are big implications for climate policy.
New planets feature young star and twin Neptunes
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team, including Oxford University scientists, has discovered ten new planets. Amongst them is one orbiting a star perhaps only a few tens of million years old,...
NASA Spacecraft Discovers 122 Pairs of Star Twins
A pair of satellites built to study the sun has discovered 122 new sets of twin stars, known as eclipsing binaries.
New insights on how solar minimums affect Earth
Since 1611, humans have recorded the comings and goings of black spots on the sun. The number of these sunspots wax and wane over approximately an 11-year cycle — more...
Spacewatch: International Space Station timings and positions
The International Space Station is due to boost its orbit twice today to climb to an average height of 382km, 39 km higher than it was at the beginning of...
A Typical Week In A 1-Person Satellite Project
Into every satellite a little grunt work must fall. Today you get to read the exceedingly boring but entirely real details of a typical week of satellite construction and project...
Conference Focused on Low-Cost Planetary Missions
Devising ways to explore space in tight fiscal times tops the agenda of the 9th International Conference on Low-Cost Planetary Missions, set for June 21-23 at the Johns Hopkins University...
Google touts mobile, desktop search breakthroughs
Advances include voice search on the desktop and smarter image search, and faster mobile search
Newt Gingrich on Space Exploration: 'NASA Is Standing in the Way'
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says 'NASA is in the way' of space exploration.
Measuring fundamental constants with methanol
Key to the astronomical modeling process by which scientists attempt to understand our universe, is a comprehensive knowledge of the values making up these models. These are generally measured to...
New Software May Help Astronauts Stay Strong in Space
Simulation software being used to develop zero gravity exercises.
Bizarre Bazaar: Century-Old Tortilla Among Harvard Oddities
Over the centuries Harvard researchers have collected odd and fascinating items that rarely see the light of day.
STEREO sees complete far side of the Sun
(PhysOrg.com) -- The far side unveiled! This is the first complete image of the solar far side, the half of the sun invisible from Earth. Captured on June 1, 2011,...
Measuring the clumpiness of proto-planetary disks
(PhysOrg.com) -- The process of star formation, once thought to involve just the simple coalescence of material under the influence of gravity, actually entails a complex series of stages, with...
What's Gandhi's "face" doing on Mars?
Strange discovery follows publication of online map pieced together from Martian satellite images
Upper stage engine ready for testing at NASA's Stennis Space Center
NASA's new J-2X rocket engine, which could power the upper stage of the nation's future heavy-lift launch vehicle, is ready for its first round of testing. The fully assembled engine...
NASA sees Arabian Sea tropical depression 1A fading
The low pressure system called System 98A was renamed tropical depression 1A over the weekend, and its strengthening was short-lived, just as it appears on NASA satellite imagery.
Stunning imagery and movie released of a now gone Hurricane Adrian
Some satellite images are striking and memorable, while others are just interesting. On June 10, NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Hurricane Adrian from space and sent a stunning image to...
Exhibits = mirth + math
Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: The Museum of Mathematics' founder says he's creating a safe environment for geeks ... but it'll also be a place where non-geeks can discover the...
Face of Gandhi Found On Google Mars
A space enthusiast has found a surface feature on Mars while perusing the Google Mars map that looks somewhat like Mahatma Gandhi.
Star Found Shooting Water "Bullets"
Firing epic quantities of water at Superman speeds—faster than a speeding bullet—a young star may be helping other stars to grow.
Fermilab experiment fails to confirm new particle claim
(PhysOrg.com) -- In April, scientists at one of Fermilabs two particle detectors, CDF, observed what they thought might be a new particle not predicted by the Standard Model. But now,...