Swift J1822.3-1606, A Low Magnetic Field Magnetar
Discovered on July 14, 2011, by NASA’s Swift space telescope, Swift J1822.3–1606 is a “low-field magnetar” with short X-ray bursts. Is it a magnetar or…
Space News
Mission Engineers Prepare for Curiosity’s Landing on Mars
Mission engineers continue to ready for the August Curiosity landing inside Gale Crater and the critical seven minute period when Curiosity must decelerate from about…
Chondrites, Not Comets, are the Likely Source of Volatile Elements on Earth
A new study from scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science contradicts prevailing theories about the relationship between in carbonaceous chondrites and comets, finding that…
Hubble Views the Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565
A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals part of the disc of the spiral galaxy NGC 4565, also known as the Needle Galaxy….
Scientists Detect Dark Galaxies for the First Time
Using the European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, an international team of scientists believes that they have detected dark galaxies by observing their glow as…
Computer Simulation Shows Correlation of Gravitational Waves and Neutrino Signals
Scientists at Caltech believe a computer simulation will help researchers interpret the information that detectors collect about neutrinos and gravitational waves from supernovae and help…
Astronomers Discover a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto
Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers discovered a fifth moon, designated P5, orbiting Pluto that is irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across….
Cassini Images Show Signs That the Seasons Are Turning On Saturn’s Moon Titan
New images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show signs that the seasons are turning on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show a…
Hubble Helps Solve the Mystery of Why Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies Contain Few Stars
With help from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers now believe reionization is to blame for the relatively small number of stars found in the extremely…
Clean Space Initiative to Target Orbital Debris
Scheduled to be implemented by 2015, the Clean Space initiative aims to reduce the environmental effect of Europe’s space activities, cutting waste and pollution on…
Evolution of the Moon Video
At roughly three minutes long, this animated video walks you through the evolution of the moon from its first formation 4.5 billion years ago, to…
Discovery Solves Decades Old Discrepancies
While studying dwarf galaxies, David Nicholls from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics discovered that that the energies of the electrons in the gas…
Cassini Changes Orbit, Saturn’s Rings Visible Again
Cassini’s orbit took the spacecraft out of Saturn’s equatorial plane in the spring of 2012, making face-on views of the rings possible again and allowing…
First Images From Project 1640
After six years of development, Project 1640 is underway and using new technology on the Palomar Observatory’s 200-inch Hale telescope near San Diego, California to…
Topographic Map of the Moon with “Walking On Air” and “A Narrated Tour of the Moon” Videos
Take a few minutes to enjoy this image of the highest resolution near-global topographic map of the moon ever created and two of NASA’s most…
Herschel Image of the Vela C Region
A new image from the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory shows Vela C, a massive star nursery that is 2,300 light-years from the Sun…
Hubble Captures Image of a Carbon Star
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of U Cam coughing out a spherical shell of gas as a layer of helium around its core…
RadioAstron, An International Project for VLBI Observations in Space
Using interferometric measurements to achieve extremely high angular resolutions, the RadioAstron mission will enable astronomers to study scientific topics like particle acceleration near supermassive black…
