Astronomers Discover Two Galaxies That Are Almost an Exact Match to the Milky Way
Using data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey, astronomers found 14 galaxy systems that are similar to the Milky Way, with two of those…
Astronomy News
Voyager Spacecraft Poised to Make New Discoveries
Launched roughly 35 years ago, NASA’s Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 spacecraft are poised to make new discoveries as scientists eagerly await for signs that…
NASA’s Curiosity Readies for First Drive on Mars
Over the last few weeks NASA’s Curiosity rover has been recording weather measurements and soil samples with its Chemistry and Camera instrument laser; now Curiosity…
High-Velocity Galactic Winds Moving at 2,500 Kilometers Per Second
Using optical morphologies from the Hubble Space Telescope and infrared photometry from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, a team of astronomers found 29 objects with…
New NASA InSight Mission Set to Explore the Depths of Mars
Set to launch in 2016, NASA’s new Discovery-class mission, called InSight, will probe Mars at new depths by looking into the deep interior of Mars…
Arepo Software Helps Simulate the Birth and Evolution of Galaxies
By using Harvard’s Odyssey high-performance supercomputer and new software called Arepo, a team of scientists developed a new computational approach that can accurately follow the…
Curiosity’s ChemCam Laser Analyzes Its First Martian Rock
NASA’s Curiosity rover fired its Chemistry and Camera instrument laser for the first time, hitting a fist-sized rock with 30 pulses of its laser during…
Mini Ion Thrusters Could Propel Small Satellites in Space
A team of MIT engineers have developed a new propulsion system that uses microscopic tips that, when stimulated with voltage, emit tiny beams of ions,…
New Measurements Show Sun’s Shape Unaffected by Solar Cycle Variability
Using the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, a team of scientists measured the shape of the Sun with unprecedented accuracy,…
The Newly Discovered Phoenix Cluster Is Breaking Cosmic Records
Located about 5.7 billion light years from Earth in the Phoenix constellation, the newly discovered galaxy cluster, officially known as SPT-CLJ2344-4243, has been dubbed the…
Detailed Image of Barnard 59, The Mouthpiece of the Pipe Nebula
Located about 600–700 light-years away from Earth in the Ophiuchus constellation, Barnard 59 forms the mouthpiece of the Pipe Nebula and can be seen in…
Color HiRISE Image of Curiosity Rover on Mars
The HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this color-enhanced image of the Curiosity rover on Mars as it begins to explore the Gale…
Earth’s Van Allen Radiation Belt to be Probed by NASA Satellites
On August 23rd, NASA will launch the Radiation Belt Storm Probes, a pair of specially designed satellites to gather information about the Earth’s Van Allen…
Probing the Cosmic Infrared Background
Using the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope, a team of astronomers probed the cosmic infrared background, finding structural features produced by the…
Examining the Dust Absorption of Active Galactic Nuclei
Using the infrared spectrometer on the Spitzer Space Telescope to examine the dust absorption of active galactic nuclei, astronomers at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory found that…
Hubble’s Close-Up View of the Tarantula Nebula
Produced by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, the above image is a close-up view of part of the Tarantula Nebula, which is 170,000 light-years away…
First 360-Degree Color Panorama From NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover
Composed from several images taken by the 34-millimeter Mast Camera on Curiosity, this new image is the first 360-degree color panorama of the Gale Crater…
Meteor Smoke Detected in Noctilucent Clouds
First noticed in 1885, noctilucent clouds have left researchers with many unanswered questions and now that scientists working on NASA’s AIM mission have detected bits…