Looking Up

Join the World in Viewing the Moon on Sept. 18 On Saturday, Sept. 18, people around the planet will be gathering for the first-ever International Observe the Moon Night, a global event meant to get …[READ MORE]

Looking for the Coolest Forms of Life on Earth – Two UK scientists are traveling to one of the coldest places on Earth to help them understand how life could exist on other planets in …[READ MORE]

Cosmic Lens Used for the First Time to Study “Dark Energy” Astronomers have devised a new method for measuring what is perhaps the greatest puzzle of our universe—“dark energy.” This mysterious force, discovered in 1998, …[READ MORE]

Eclipsing Pulsar Promises Clues to Crushed Matter A city-sized sphere rotating 518 times a second… Astronomers using an X-ray telescope in space have found the first fast X-ray pulsar to be eclipsed by its companion …[READ MORE]

Spacecraft Camera Yields Most Accurate Mars Map Ever; Perseid Meteors Return August 12 A camera aboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever. Researchers and the public can …[READ MORE]

New Signaling Concept Could Refocus Search for Signs of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life For 50 years, humans have scanned the skies with radio telescopes for distant electronic signals indicating the existence of intelligent alien life. The …[READ MORE]

Astronomers Discover an Unusual Cosmic Lens Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have discovered the first known case of a distant galaxy being magnified …[READ MORE]

Sky Treats for Your Summer Pleasure… July Sees Gathering of Five Bright Celestial Lights An array of five of the sky’s leading lights gather together over the western horizon on mid-July nights. Venus, the dazzling …[READ MORE]

On its Way to a Comet, Spacecraft Checks Out an Asteroid The Rosetta orbiter, which carries the lander Philae, has completed more than two thirds of its journey to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The most comprehensive …[READ MORE]

Voyager 2 Completes 12,000 Days of Continuous Operations; New “Cosmic Café” Opens on Mt. Wilson On June 28, 2010, Voyager 2 completed 12,000 days of continuous operations since its launch on August 20, 1977. For …[READ MORE]