Astronomy News

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Breaking News

NASA's Kepler Announces 11 New Planetary Systems NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of January 26, 2012.

Cassini Sees the Two Faces of Titan's Dunes New analysis of radar data from NASA's Cassini orbiter mission has revealed regional variations among sand dunes on Saturn's moon Titan. The result gives new clues about the moon's climatic and geological history. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of January 23, 2012.

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Finds Three Planets Smaller Than Earth. NASA's Kepler telescope has discovered three of the smallest extra-solar planets ever orbiting the red dwarf star KOI-961. The smallest of the three is about the size of Mars. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of January 11, 2012.

GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) Spacecraft Go Into Lunar Orbit The twin spacecraft, GRAIL -A and GRAIL - B have reached the moon and have gone into orbit to study and learn what goes on below the lunar surface. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News -1 and NASA/JPL News - 2 reports of December 31, 2011 and January 1, 2012 respectively.

Subaru Telescope Data Confirms Signs of Unseen Planets in Dust Ring of Young Star Data obtained from the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii indicates the presence of unseen planets developing in the dust ring of a young star known as HR 4796 A located 240 light-years from Earth. For complete report, see the Subaru Telescope press release of December 29, 2011.

Southwest Research Institute Researchers Discover New Evidence for Complex Molecules on Pluto's Surface Data obtained from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope suggests the possibility of complex hydrocarbon and/or nitrile molecules lying on the surface of Pluto. For complete report, see the Southwest Research Institute report of December 20, 2011.

NASA Discovers First Earth-Size Planets Beyond Our Solar System NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. For complete report on this story, see the NASA/JPL News report of December 20, 2011.

Data From NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Shows That the Asteroid Vesta Has Planet-like Features Data from the Dawn spacecraft visiting the asteroid Vesta shows that Vesta has enormous mountains, valleys, hills, cliffs, troughs, ridges, craters and plains. For more details on this report, see the Science at NASA news report of December 9, 2011.

NASA Mars Rover Finds Mineral Vein Deposited by Water NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of these veins will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on Mars. For more information on this report, see the NASA/JPL News report of December 7, 2011.

NASA's Kepler Confirms Its First Planet in a Habitable Zone NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet found in what scientists call a "habitable zone." This is a region around a star where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. The planet called Kepler - 22b orbits a star 600 light-years away. For complete report on this discovery, see the NASA/JPL News report of December 5, 2011.

NASA's Voyager Hits New Region at Solar Systems Edge NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft which was launched in 1977 has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space where the charged particles coming from the Sun has slowed down, our solar system's magnetic field has piled up and higher-energy particles from inside our solar system may be leaking out into interstellar space. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of December 5, 2011.

Strange New "Species" of Ultra-Red Galaxies Discovered Astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered something new and strange located 13 billion light-years from Earth - red galaxies. Four such galaxies have been discovered and no one knows what makes them appear so reddish. For complete report, see the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics report of December 1, 2011.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is Launched Toward Planet Mars NASA's Mars Science Laboratory with its rover called Curiosity was launched today, at 10:02 am (EST). The Science Lab is due to touch down inside Gale Crater on Mars on August 6, 2012. For more information on this mission, see the NASA/JPL News report of November 26, 2011.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Catches Mars Sand Dunes in Motion Images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show sand dunes and ripples moving across the surface of Mars at dozens of locations and shifting up to several yards. These observations reveal the planet's sandy surface is more dynamic than previously thought. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of November 17, 2011.

NASA Probe Data Shows Liquid Water Evidence on Europa Data from the Galileo probe that orbited the Jupiter system years ago has provided evidence that there is a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of November 16, 2011.

New Study Shows Very First Stars Not Monstrous Astronomers once believed that the very first stars in the universe were hundreds of times as massive as our Sun but now a new study shows that they were only tens of times as massive as our Sun. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of November 10, 2011.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Set to Launch on November 25 - News Coverage Set The Mars Science Laboratory with the Curiosity rover is set to launch on Friday, November 25, 2011. Briefings about the mission are scheduled throughout the week leading to launch and will be held at the Kennedy Space Center's Press site. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News release of November 10, 2011.

City Lights Could Reveal Extraterrestrial Civilization Researchers suggest that in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, we could search for city lights on distant planets. For complete report, see the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics press release of November 3, 2011.

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Super Storm on Saturn A giant early-spring storm so powerful that it stretches around the entire planet is being tracked by NASA's Cassini spacecraft and the European Southern Observatory's ground-based telescope. For complete report, see the NASA Science news article of May 19, 2011.

Spitzer Sees Crystal 'Rain' in Outer Clouds of Infant Star Tiny crystals of a green mineral called olivine are falling down like rain on a burgeoning star, according to observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL news release of May 26, 2011.

Voyager Spacecraft Observations Suggest Magnetic Bubbles at Solar System Edge Observations from NASA's Voyager spacecraft suggest that the edge of our solar system may be filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News Release of June 9, 2011.

NASA's Chandra Finds Massive Black Holes Common in Early Universe Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. For complete report, see the Chandra X-ray Observatory website report of June 15, 2011.

New Discoveries About Planet Mercury Data from the Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft presently orbiting the planet Mercury is giving scientists important clues to the origin of the planet and its geological history. For complete report, visit the Astrobiology Magazine news report of June 21, 2011.

NASA's Spitzer Finds Distant Galaxies Grazed on Gas Astronomers have discovered that galaxies in the distant, early universe continuously ingested their star-making fuel over long periods of time instead of doing so in quick bursts as previously believed. For complete report on this finding, see the NASA/JPL News Release of June 30, 2011.

Cassini Captures Images and Sounds of Saturn Storm Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have the first ever, close-up details of this huge storm. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News Release of July 6, 2011.

NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Asteroid Vesta On Saturday July 16, NASA's Dawn spacecraft became the first probe to orbit an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News Release of July 16, 2011.

Hubble Discovers a New Moon Around Pluto Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a fourth moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto. The newly discovered moon is said to be 8 - 21 miles in diameter and is the smallest of Pluto's four moons. For complete report, see the Science at NASA news report of July 20, 2011.

Astronomers Find Largest, Most Distant Reservoir of Water Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The amount of water, which is equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the Earth's ocean was found around a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of July 22, 2011.

Enceladus Rains Water Onto Saturn The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory has shown that water expelled from the moon Enceladus forms a giant torus of water vapor around its parent planet Saturn. For complete report, see the European Space Agency news report of July 26, 2011.

Herschel Telescope Detects Oxygen Molecules in Space The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory has made the first confirmed finding of oxygen molecules in space. The molecules were discovered in the Orion star-forming complex. For complete report on this story, see the NASA/JPL News report of August 1, 2011.

NASA Spacecraft Data Suggests Water Flowing on Mars Observations made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of August 4, 2011.

An Arrow-Shaped Cloud on Titan A research group from UCLA has demonstrated how planetary- scale atmospheric waves can affect the moon's weather patterns leading to a stenciling effect that results in sharp and sometimes surprising cloud shapes. For complete report on this study, see the Astrobiology Magazine news article of August 18, 2011.

Astronomers Find Ice and Possibly Methane on Snow White, a Distant Dwarf Planet California Institute of Technology (Caltech) astronomers have discovered that a dwarf planet called Snow White that has about half its surface covered in water ice and possibly a thin layer of methane as well. For complete report, see the Caltech news article of August 22, 2011.

NASA's WISE Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer have found the coldest class of star-like bodies called Y dwarfs with temperatures as cool as the human body. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News report of August 23, 2011.

NASA Launches the GRAIL Mission to Study Moon From Crust to Core On Saturday, September 10, 2011, NASA launched the twin lunar Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft to study the moon and measure its gravity field. For complete report on this mission, see the NASA/JPL News report of September 10, 2011

Astronomers Discover 50 New Extra-solar Planets Astronomers using the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6 meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla site in Chile have discovered 50 new extra-solar planets including 16 super-Earths. For complete report, see the European Southern Observatory press release of September 12, 2011.

NASA's Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars NASA's Kepler mission has detected the first planet that is orbiting two stars. For complete report on this discovery, see the NASA/JPL News release of September 15, 2011.

Martian Clay as Habitats for Life Scientists have discovered two small depressions on Mars that are rich in minerals that were formed by water which could have hosted life relatively recently in the planet's history. For complete report, see the Astrobiology Magazine news report of Sept. 23, 2011

Astronomers Have Found Elusive Planets in Decade-Old Hubble Data In a re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1998, astronomers have found visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected at that time. For complete story, visit the NASA News report of October 6, 2011.

Venus Has Ozone Layer The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that the planet Venus has a layer of ozone in the planet's upper atmosphere. For complete report, see the Europlanet Outreach press release of October 6, 2011.

NASA's Spitzer Detects Comet Storm in Nearby Solar System NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected icy bodies raining down on another solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment," which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to the Earth. For complete report, see the NASA/JPL News release of October 19, 2011.

Herschel Finds Ocean of Water in Disk of Nearby Star Astronomers using data from the Herschel Space Observatory have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a du8sty disk around a young star. The findings suggest that this disk, ready to develop into a solar system, contains great quantities of water, suggesting that water-covered planets like Earth may be common in the universe. For complete story, see the NASA/JPL News release of October 20, 2011.

Bright Spot On Uranus Reported Observers using the Gemini Telescope North in Hawaii have discovered a very bright cloud on Uranus. This bright cloud could be a developing storm. For complete report, see the Universe Today article of October 28, 2011.

Star Discovered With Spiral Arms There is always something new being discovered in space - this time astronomers using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii have discovered a young star more than 400 light years from Earth in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf with spiral arms extending from its circumstellar disk. For complete report, see the NASA Science report of October 31, 2011.

NASA Study of Clays Suggests Watery Mars Underground A new NASA study involving clay minerals on Mars suggests that persistent warm water was confined to the subsurface of the red planet. For complete report on this story, see the NASA/JPL News release of November 2, 2011.