Looking Up by Bob Eklund

An international team, including Dr. Christoph Baranec of the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Institute for Astronomy, is using the world’s first robotic laser adaptive optics system—Robo-AO—to explore thousands of exoplanet systems (planets around other …[READ MORE]

Scientists using mission data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have identified 101 distinct geysers erupting on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. Their analysis suggests it is possible for liquid water to reach from that moon’s underground sea …[READ MORE]

In 2012, the Voyager mission team announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft had passed into interstellar space, traveling farther from Earth than any other manmade object. But in the nearly two years since that historic …[READ MORE]

Building on 14 years of extraordinary discoveries, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has launched a major program of three new surveys, adding novel capabilities to expand its census of the Universe into regions it …[READ MORE]

If a lot of us feel baffled by simply how to survive the next 24 hours, astronomers are taking a longer view—way out to the year 2028. That’s when the European Space Agency (ESA) plans …[READ MORE]

“Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky….” A team of astronomers, using multiple telescopes, has identified the coolest, faintest white dwarf star known. White dwarfs are the extremely dense end …[READ MORE]

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover completed a full Martian year—687 Earth days—as of June 24, having accomplished the mission’s main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. One of Curiosity’s …[READ MORE]

NASA scientists using Earth-based radar have produced sharp views of a recently discovered asteroid as it slid silently past our planet. Captured on June 8, 2014, the new views of the object designated “2014 HQ124” …[READ MORE]

The “Man in the Moon” appeared when meteoroids struck the Earth-facing side of the Moon, creating large flat seas of basalt that we see as dark areas called maria. But no “face” exists on the …[READ MORE]

NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way glittering with hundreds of X-ray points of light. The galaxy is officially named Messier 51 (M51), but often goes by …[READ MORE]