Looking Up by Bob Eklund

A team of Spanish astrophysicists has obtained precise measurements for the innermost region of a disc of matter in orbital motion around a supermassive black hole in the lensed quasar known as Einstein’s Cross (Q2237-0305). …[READ MORE]

A long time ago in a galaxy half the universe away, a flood of high-energy gamma rays began its journey to Earth. When they arrived in April, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope caught the outburst, …[READ MORE]

Dwarf planet Ceres reveals some of its well-kept secrets in a study published in the journal Nature, thanks to new data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. They include highly anticipated insights about mysterious bright features found …[READ MORE]

Life on other planets? A recent study by University of Nevada Las Vegas astrophysicist Jason Steffen is shedding new light on this persistently challenging question. In our galaxy, there may be billions of planetary systems …[READ MORE]

One hundred years ago this month, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity, one of the most important scientific achievements in the last century. A key result of Einstein’s theory is that matter warps …[READ MORE]

On its way to higher layers of the mountain where it is investigating how Mars’ environment changed billions of years ago, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover will take advantage of a chance to study some modern …[READ MORE]

Scientists have discovered a new exoplanet that, in the language of “Star Wars,” would be the polar opposite of frigid Hoth, and even more inhospitable than the deserts of Tatooine. But instead of residing in …[READ MORE]

Every two to seven years, an unusually warm pool of water—sometimes 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal—develops across the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean to create a natural short-term climate change event. This warm …[READ MORE]

NASA scientists are tracking the upcoming Halloween flyby of asteroid 2015 TB145 with several optical observatories and the radar capabilities of the agency’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. The asteroid will fly past Earth …[READ MORE]

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has begun returning its best-ever views of the northern extremes of Saturn’s icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus. The spacecraft obtained the images during its Oct. 14 flyby, passing 1,142 miles above the moon’s …[READ MORE]