• Farside CME hurled toward Mercury and Venus

    An active region on the far side of the sun erupted on October 14 and hurled a significant coronal mass ejection toward Mercury and Venus. Analysts at the Goddard Space Flight Center expect the cloud to hit the innermost planet on October 15 around 08:30 UTC….

  • Farside CME heading for Mercury

    Yesterday, October 4th, something exploded on the far side of the sun and propelled a spectacular CME into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud as it emerged from behind the sun’s limb:Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have

  • Solar wind blasts Mercury

    At a NASA teleconference yesterday, researchers working with data from the Messenger spacecraft offered new evidence that gusts of solar wind are penetrating Mercury’s magnetic field and eroding material off the planet’s surface. The spacecraft has actually flown

  • Sun spews CME toward Mercury

    On Sept 8th around 2300 UT, the SOHO and STEREO spacecraft detected a significant CME emerging from the farside of the sun. Earth is not in the line of fire, but the planet Mercury is. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab estimate that the cloud will reach the

  • Fourth moon discovered around Pluto

    Five years after Pluto was stripped of its planet status, astronomers have discovered yet another moon in orbit around it, bringing its entourage to four. The tiny body may have been born in the same collision that gave birth to Pluto's other moons.The Hubble Space

  • Planetary triangle seen on sky this morning

    Another day, another alignment of planets. “This morning, May 14th, the ‘planetary triangle’ created by Venus, Jupiter and Mercury adorned the eastern sky behind my nearby mosque,” reports Shahrin Ahmad, who snapped this picture from his rooftop observatory of Sri

  • SkyWatchers: Great Morning Planet Show!

    The Great Morning Planet Show of May 2011 is underway. Every morning for the rest of this month, you can see a beautiful gathering of four planets in the eastern sky. They are Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, shown here on May 1st over Magnetic Island in east

  • 2011 Skywatching Guide: Planets in the Solar System

    The planets of our solar system are at tomes some of the most rewarding and simplest skywatching targets to spot, if you know when and where to look. Here's a look at how to observe the planets of the solar system in 2011: Tip: Astronomers measure distances in…