ESA’s comet chaser Rosetta has made its first temperature measurements of its target comet, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and found that it is too hot to be covered in ice and must instead have a dark, dusty crust.The observations of the comet we
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to explore the Perseus Cluster, a swarm of galaxies approximately 250 million light years from Earth, have observed the spectral line that appears not to come from any known type of matter. The signal
As the ESA's comet chaser Rosetta approaches Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) for an August rendezvous, the comet's core is finally coming into sharper focus. Yesterday, ESA released a new set of images taken by the OSIRIS spacecraft on July 20th
In late June 2013 astronomers using Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observed an exceptional binary containing a rapidly spinning neutron star which suddenly underwent a dramatic change in behavior. The pulsar's radio beacon vanished, while at the same time the
Ocean waves, the hot sun, sea breezes — the right combination makes a great day at the beach. A different combination makes a killer hurricane. The complex interactions of the ocean and the air above it that can create such different outcomes are not yet fully known. S
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new "tsunami wave" from the sun as it sails through interstellar space. Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun's bubble, entering a n
NASA's revolutionary twin STEREO probes which allowed us to see the farside of the Sun and make 3D models of incoming CMEs will pass directly behind the Sun later this year making images from the probes unavailable for quite some time.While planning the
ESA has selected the Athena advanced telescope for high-energy astrophysics as its second ‘Large-class’ science mission.The observatory will study the hot and energetic Universe and takes the ‘L2’ slot in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015–25 p
Space may appear empty — a soundless vacuum, but it's not an absolute void. It flows with electric activity that is not visible to our eyes. NASA is developing plans to send humans to an asteroid, and wants to know more about the electrical environment explorers wi
In late May, NASA's Swift satellite imaged comet Siding Spring, which will brush astonishingly close to Mars on October 19, 2014. These optical and ultraviolet observations are the first to reveal how rapidly the comet is producing water and allow astronomers to
