Astronomy, Space | featured news

The atmosphere of a relatively nearby extrasolar planet - just three times bigger than Earth - has been measured in a pioneering experiment.

A camera on the plane's wing captured dramatic images as it flew back down through the earth's atmosphere.

Scientists discovered two bubbles of energy erupting from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Jupiter and Mars aren't the only recent impact victims in our solar system. In two talks today at the Division for Planetary Sciences in Pasadena, California, astronomers report that a small asteroid located in the inner asteroid belt between those two planets took a major hit early last year.

Discovery of a "Goldilocks" planet smack in the middle of the "habitable zone" of the nearby star, Gliese 581 is the news of the day. This is certainly newsworthy result. Finding a rocky, Earthlike, planet in the habitable zone is a major milestone.

A small asteroid passed within the moon's distance from the Earth on Wednesday morning, and another will do likewise later in the day, space watchers say.

Thirty-four years after NASA's Viking missions to Mars sent back results interpreted to mean there was no organic material - and consequently no life - on the planet, new research has concluded that organic material was found after all.

European scientists say they've figured out the recipe for water in space: Just add starlight.

NASA may appear to have its pick of thousands of known asteroids for a manned mission, but only two are good targets within the next 20 years. An asteroid mission requires a large-enough destination that astronauts could reach within a few months of launch from Earth, says Lindley Johnson, head of NASA's Near-Earth Object program in Washington. Other limits to such an ambitious undertaking include the viewing range of ground-based telescopes.

After Venus sets, it's Jupiter that takes over for the rest of the night, outshining everything in the night sky but the moon.