• Night sky guide for August 2016

    The peak of this year's Perseid meteor shower, one of the most prolific annual showers, will be in "outburst" mode on August 11 and 12, the first since 2009. This means that instead of the usual 80 Perseids per hour, the rate could top 150 or 200…

  • Venus weather patterns reveal planet’s surface

    New research, based on data from ESA's Venus Express satellite, for the first time reveals how the weather patterns on Venus are directly connected to the surface topography of the planet. Results suggest the Venus' thick cloud cover could offer further…

  • Jupiter’s Great Red Spot heats planet’s upper atmosphere

    Researchers from Boston University's (BU) Center for Space Physics report that Jupiter's Great Red Spot may provide the mysterious source of energy required to heat the planet's upper atmosphere to the unusually high values observed. The work, led by Dr…

  • Fiery re-entry of China’s Chang Zheng 7 rocket over the Western US

    A slow moving bright streak of light burst across the night sky over California, Utah and Nevada around 21:36 PTD on Wednesday, July 27 (04:36 UTC on July 28). Images and videos of the event immediately sent social media into a frenzy. The event lasted for over 30…

  • Study points to a new paradigm in the star and star cluster formation

    A research team from Brazil discovered seven new star clusters, younger than 5 million years, and located far away from the Galactic disc. Two young stellar clusters, named Camargo 438 and Camargo 439 were found in the Galactic halo using NASA's Wide-field…

  • Juno’s arrival: Photos of a giant

    Juno is on the trip of a lifetime! By now you’ve heard that this spacecraft has successfully reached Jupiter and is currently orbiting the planet. But you haven’t seen pictures of its journey. Until now. The final view taken by the JunoCam instrument on…

  • A ‘big flame in the sky’ over South Island, New Zealand

    A 'big flame in the sky' was observed over New Zealand's South Island at 06:30 UTC (18:30 local time) on July 19, 2016. The object was initially considered a 'fist-sized" meteor, but, after further analyses, some experts now believe it was a…

  • OneWeb’s 700-satellite constellation is right on schedule

    There is nothing better than finding a free open Wi-Fi signal when you’re wandering around the world, especially if you’re using your navigation app or something else that eats up a lot of your phone’s data plan. If that sounds good, imagine this…

  • Bright Alpha Capricornid fireball recorded over Northern Africa

    A very bright fireball was observed over Northern Africa at 21:05 UTC on July 8, 2016, and recorded by Spain's SMART Project meteor-observing network. The data collected by SMART network have been analyzed by its principal investigator, Professor José…

  • Juno enters orbit around Jupiter

    NASA's Juno spacecraft has successfully entered Jupiter's orbit during a 35-minute engine burn on July 5, 2016 (UTC). The confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 03:53 UTC (Earth-receive time, currently 48 minutes after the actual…