Milky Way Galaxy Has Over 100 Billion Planets
According to a recently completed statistical study by an international team of astronomers, our galaxy has at least 100 billion planets. Gravitational microlensing was used…
Space News
Three Smallest Exoplanets Found by NASA Kepler Astronomers
Kepler’s mission is to find potentially habitable planets around Earth size and smaller in a target region of the Milk Way galaxy. It’s had quite…
Black Hole Fires Cosmic Bullets of Ionized Gases
Using the Very Large Baseline Array, astronomers have managed to capture an image of a black hole firing two gigantic pockets of ionized gas at…
Hubble Observes Rare Blue Stars in Andromeda’s Core
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope made a rare discovery when looking deep into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Spotted was a population of rare blue stars in…
Largest Galaxy Cluster in Distant Universe Found by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
The largest galaxy cluster in the distant universe has been found and nicknamed “El Gordo,” which is much easier to say than the official name…
Milky Way Galaxy Mosaic of Images from WISE
NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has mapped the entire sky twice with infrared light giving us a large mosaic image that showcases a vast…
New Herschel Space Observatory Image Shows Magellanic Cloud Galaxy
A European Space Agency-led mission in combination with the Herschel Space Observatory and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope reveal new images of the Large and Small…
NASA’s Toxic Test Chamber Allows Hellish Venus-Like Conditions on Earth
In an effort to learn how their technology will react to the hellish surface conditions on Venus, NASA engineers will put together a 12-ton toxic…
NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) Makes Final Observation
NASA’s RXTE has made many important scientific observations over its 16 year history and on January 4th, 2012 it sent its last observation to the…
The Puzzle of an Eternally-Existing, Self-Reproducing, and Inflationary Universe
There are quite a few challenges for cosmologists trying to discover evidence of what it was like early in the life of our universe, but…
Orion Mockup Takes Final Splash Test
As testing continues on the next deep space exploration vehicle, Orion received its final drop test in what was a series of worst case landing…
Our Universe Collided with Another Billions of Years Ago, Stephen Hawking States
While it’s a well-known fact that there’s an upcoming Andromeda-Milky Way collision in 3 to 5 billion years, Stephen Hawking has stated that we should…
NASA Plans Trajectory Maneuver for Mars Science Laboratory Spacecraft
On Jan. 11, 2012, NASA is planning to conduct the biggest trajectory maneuver for the Science Laboratory Spacecraft on its mission to Mars. By precisely…
GRAIL Probes Now Orbiting The Moon
Two new satellites are now in orbit around the moon and they could give us some valuable info about whether our moon merged with another…
Comet Lovejoy Streaks Past Desert Telescope
On December 22, Guillaume Blanchard of the European Southern Observatory captured one amazing image that features two impressive objects together: comet Lovejoy and ESO’s Telescope,…
SOFIA Looking Deep Into the Orion Nebula
It’s amazing to think that a NASA telescope mounted in a specially modified Boeing 747SP jet can look into the heart of a nebula where…
NASA Probe Takes Close-Up Photos of Giant Vesta Asteroid
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has taken its first close-up images of the asteroid Vesta, revealing tons of new detail. Vesta is located in the asteroid belt…
Russia’s Mars Probe will Come Down in January
After losing contact back in November, the Russian Space Agency admits failure. The Russian Phobos-Ground spacecraft, which was to be headed for a moon of…