• Night sky guide for November 2015

    Out of two meteor showers scheduled for November – Taurids and Leonids – only the second one should offer a good show, with about 15 meteors per hour on November 17/18. All but the brightest Taurids, expected to peak on the night of November 5, will be blocked out…

  • Black hole experiences massive X-ray flare

    Black holes have always been one of the most mysterious and awe inspiring objects in space. Astronomers have known for some time that black holes periodically emit very powerful flares into space. New observations from NASA's Explorer missions Swift and the…

  • First raw image from Enceladus’ October 28 flyby now available

    First image of Saturn's moon Enceladus has been received from the Cassini spacecraft, NASA reported on October 30, 2015. NASA's Cassini spacecraft was scheduled to perform its deepest-ever dive through the icy plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus on October…

  • Russia’s manned Moon mission set for 2029 launch

    Over 45 years after losing the space race to the United States, Russia has finally announced its own manned Moon mission which is set to be launched in 2029. The mission will be preceded by multiple unmanned missions which will include orbiters and landers and will…

  • Science behind “booming” and “burping” sand dunes explained

    Research team from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Cambridge has explained the science behind the loud, rumbling "booming" or short "burping" sounds produced by sand avalanches from dune faces in Death Valley…

  • Swarm of earthquakes registered near central Oregon volcanic complex

    Beginning on October 22, 2015, a swarm of mostly small earthquakes occurred about 10 km (6 miles) NW of the towns of Crescent and Gilchrist, Oregon. Through the morning of October 23, the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) located 29 events, and a number of…

  • Does dark matter actually exist?

    Scientists working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are proposing a radical new theory about the nature of invisible, theoretical dark matter particles. The scientists have developed what they call a “stealth dark matter” model, which…

  • A giant rock avalanche recorded in the Swiss Alps

    A giant rock broke off the side of the Mel de la Niva mountain, near Evolene region in the Swiss Alps on October 19, 2015. A geologists who was taking video shots near the area witnessed the fall and documented it on a footage. The 2 000 cubic meters (70 269 cubic…