Speeding toward pale, icy Dione, Cassini’s view is enriched by the tranquil gold and blue hues of Saturn in the distance. The horizontal stripes near the bottom of the image are Saturn’s rings. The spacecraft was nearly in the plane Continue reading
Just in time for May Day, the Sun blasted out a coronal mass ejection (CME) from just around the limb earlier today, May 1, 2013. In a gigantic rolling wave, this CME shot out about a billion tons of particles Continue reading
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a close-up view of an outer part of the Orion Nebula’s little brother, Messier 43. This nebula, which is sometimes referred to as De Mairan’s Nebula after its discoverer, is separated from the Continue reading
On March 15, 2013, at 2:54 a.m. EDT, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days Continue reading
A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring around 100 people, including many hurt by broken glass. Fragments of the meteor fell in a thinly populated area of the Continue reading
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is one of the most experienced space travellers in the world (actually right now he is about 330 kilometers above the Earth). Hadfield served as NASA mission specialist on STS-74 and STS-100. He is currently living Continue reading
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a highly detailed image of a pair of overlapping galaxies called NGC 3314. While the two galaxies look as if they are in the midst of a collision, this is in fact a Continue reading
Craters appear well defined on icy Rhea in front of the hazy orb of the much larger moon Titan in this Cassini spacecraft view of these two Saturn moons. Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemispheres of Rhea Continue reading
The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest known spiral, based on archival data from Continue reading
Look up at the night sky and you’ll see stars, sure. But the sky is also filled with planets — billions and billions of them at least. That’s the conclusion of a new study by astronomers at the California Institute Continue reading