Looking Up by Bob Eklund

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled …[READ MORE]

The European Space Agency’s Venus Express has ended its eight-year mission after far exceeding its planned life. The spacecraft exhausted its propellant during a series of thruster burns to raise its orbit following the low-altitude …[READ MORE]

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory’s drill. “This …[READ MORE]

A team of scientists, led by Dr. Sebastian Hoenig from the University of Southampton, has measured the distance to the NGC 4151 (“Eye of Sauron”) galaxy with unprecedented accuracy, using the W. M. Keck Observatory …[READ MORE]

Scientists have produced a new version of what is perhaps NASA’s best view of Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa. The mosaic of color images was obtained in the late 1990s by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. This is …[READ MORE]

With the Philae lander’s mission complete, Rosetta will now continue its own extraordinary exploration, orbiting Comet 67P/Churymov–Gerasimenko during the coming year as the enigmatic body arcs ever closer to our Sun. Last week, ESA’s Rosetta …[READ MORE]

On Nov. 12, ESA’s Rosetta mission made history by soft-landing its Philae probe on a comet, the first time such an extraordinary feat has been achieved. After a tense wait during the seven-hour descent to …[READ MORE]

The site where Rosetta’s Philae lander is scheduled to touch down on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko November 12 now has a name: Agilkia. The landing site, previously known as “Site J,” is named for Agilkia Island on …[READ MORE]

Using an array of 6 telescopes at Mount Wilson Observatory  astronomers have observed the expanding thermonuclear fireball from a “nova” that erupted last year in the constellation Delphinus. The observations produced the first images of …[READ MORE]

The longest-lived robot ever sent to Mars came through its latest challenge in good health, reporting home on schedule after sheltering behind Mars from possible comet dust. NASA’s Mars Odyssey was out of communications with …[READ MORE]