China's first prototype space station, named Tiangong-1 (Chinese for "Heavenly Palace 1"), is expected to reenter the Earth's atmosphere sometime between January and March 2018 following the end of its operational life, during which most of the…
Some of our solar system's asteroids have photobombed deep images of the universe taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. These asteroids reside, on average, only about 99.4 million km (160 million miles) from Earth — right around the corner in…
The ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA mission SOHO — short for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory — got a visit from an old friend this week when comet 96P entered its field of view on October 25, 2017. The comet entered the lower right corner of…
A giant planet – the existence of which was previously thought extremely unlikely – has been discovered by an international collaboration of astronomers, with the University of Warwick taking a leading role. New research, led by Dr. Daniel Bayliss and Professor…
A deep look back to the early universe by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a surprisingly rowdy bunch of galaxies. Within a large galaxy sample, Spitzer witnessed around 15% of galaxies undergoing bouts of extreme starmaking, called starbursts. The…
The Sun and Earth both produce powerful magnetic fields, and their intersection develops a complex system of physics that determines the space weather experienced by our planet. The solar wind – a constant stream of charged particles (plasma) emitted from the Sun -…
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been a harsh reminder of the grief and devastation brought by these vast storms. Imaging the top of hurricanes from space is nothing new, but the Sentinel-1 satellites can see right through these towering spinning…
OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s asteroid sample return spacecraft successfully used Earth’s gravity on Friday, September 22, 2017 to slingshot itself on a path toward the Asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August. The spacecraft came within 17 237 km (10 711…
Scientists on NASA's Juno mission have observed massive amounts of energy swirling over Jupiter's polar regions that contribute to the giant planet's powerful auroras – only not in ways the researchers expected. Examining data collected by the…
The Cassini probe's first results from inside Saturn's rings make scientists question the conventional wisdom on how planets form magnetic fields. As NASA's Cassini spacecraft makes its unprecedented series of weekly dives between Saturn and its rings,…
