• Solar Dynamics Observatoy (SDO) – Year 4

    NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), launched on February 11, 2010, keeps a 24-hour eye on the entire disk of the Sun, with a prime view of the graceful dance of solar material coursing through the Sun's atmosphere, the corona. The

  • Hawking still in the dark on black holes

    In a new online paper titled Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes, the 72-year-old scientist Stephen Hawking says, "There are no black holes — in the sense from which light can't escape to infinity."

    The

  • Our changing climate and the variable Sun

    Solar physicists around the world today are wondering: has the Sun fallen silent? In 2013, the Sun began the peak phase of its 11-year sun spot cycle called the Solar Maximum when sunspot production should be at its highest. However, the lack of sunspot activity has

  • Night sky guide for February 2014

    According to AMS, February offers the meteor observer in the northern hemisphere a couple of weak showers plus falling sporadic rates. February is also the start of the fireball season, when an abundance of fireballs seem to occur. This lasts well into April

  • Asteroid diversity points to a "snow globe" solar system

    Our solar system seems like a neat and orderly place, with small, rocky worlds near the Sun and big, gaseous worlds farther out, all eight planets following orbital paths unchanged since they formed.

    However, the true history of the solar system is more riotous.

  • Rosetta wakes up from deep space hibernation

    After 31 months of deep space hibernation ESA's comet chaser "Rosetta" has woken up and contacted mission control today. The signal was received by NASA’s Goldstone ground station in California at 18:18 UTC, during the first window of oppor

  • The future of space program – We should all share the same vision

    Delegates from more than 30 countries have gathered last week in the US to try to map out a shared vision for future space exploration.

    The US State Department hosted the talks on Thursday, which included government representatives from countries traditionally seen