Celestial flybys set to thrill
Astronomers are gearing up for thrills this year when Earth gets buzzed by two rogue asteroids and two comets, including a wanderer last seen by the forerunners of mankind.
Jan 6th, 2013
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Astronomers are gearing up for thrills this year when Earth gets buzzed by two rogue asteroids and two comets, including a wanderer last seen by the forerunners of mankind.
Jan 6th, 2013
Read moreNASA-funded researchers analyzing a small meteorite that may be the first discovered from the Martian surface or crust have found it contains 10 times more water than other Martian meteorites from unknown origins.
Jan 4th, 2013
Read moreScientists have replaced the telescope by the microscope: Using the similarities between the structure of a crystal and the state of the cosmos in the early universe, they have explored a yet unconfirmed phenomenon, the formation of cosmic strings. These so-called "topological defects" are believed to have formed as the universe expanded shortly after the Big Bang.
Jan 4th, 2013
Read moreLook up at the night sky and you'll see stars, sure. But you're also seeing planets - billions and billions of them. At least. That's the conclusion of a new study by astronomers at Caltech that provides yet more evidence that planetary systems are the cosmic norm.
Jan 3rd, 2013
Read moreA new study observes 13 smaller satellite galaxies orbiting around the immense Andromeda galaxy in a way similar to how the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun. The galaxies are orbiting on a thin, pancake-like plane at a scale 900 million times larger than our own solar system.
Jan 3rd, 2013
Read moreTantalizing signs of flows feeding gas-guzzling giant planets.
Jan 2nd, 2013
Read moreEnormous outflows of charged particles from the centre of our Galaxy, stretching more than halfway across the sky and moving at supersonic speeds, have been detected and mapped with CSIRO's 64-m Parkes radio telescope.
Jan 2nd, 2013
Read moreAn autonomous system for exploring the solar system's smaller members, such as moons and asteroids, could bring us closer to a human mission to Mars.
Jan 2nd, 2013
Read moreWith its 2160 litres of liquid helium about to run out, the Herschel Space Observatory will, by the end of March, become just another piece of space junk.
Jan 2nd, 2013
Read moreAs if space travel was not already filled with enough dangers, a new study shows that cosmic radiation - which would bombard astronauts on deep space missions to places like Mars - could accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Jan 2nd, 2013
Read moreResearchers describe a new mechanism for the magnetisation of the universe even before the emergence of the first stars.
Jan 2nd, 2013
Read moreOf the three telescopes carried by NASA's Swift satellite, only one captures cosmic light at energies similar to those seen by the human eye. Although small by the standards of ground-based observatories, Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) plays a critical role in rapidly pinpointing the locations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the cosmos.
Dec 29th, 2012
Read moreNASA and the mobile application Foursquare have teamed up to help the public unlock its scientific curiosity with a new rover-themed Curiosity Explorer badge.
Dec 28th, 2012
Read moreChina has launched commercial and public services across the Asia-Pacific region on its domestic satellite navigation network built to rival the US global positioning system.
Dec 28th, 2012
Read moreNASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been providing astounding images of the universe since April 1990 and has led to remarkable discoveries. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the next-generation telescope that will peer even deeper into space and unveil even more mysteries. Both of these extraordinary telescopes are now the topics of two free e-books available from the Apple iBookstore.
Dec 22nd, 2012
Read moreSome of the biggest black holes in the Universe may actually be even bigger than previously thought, according to a study using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Dec 21st, 2012
Read moreA new study indicates that clay minerals, rocks that usually form when water is present for long periods of time, cover a larger portion of Mars than previously thought.
Dec 21st, 2012
Read moreChina's space probe Chang'e-2 has successfully conducted a maneuver in which it flew by the asteroid Toutatis, about seven million km away from the Earth.
Dec 21st, 2012
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