NASA Spacecraft Tracks Raging Saturn Storm - As a powerful electrical storm rages on Saturn with lightning bolts 10,000 times more powerful than those found on Earth, the Cassini spacecraft continues its five-month watch over the dramatic events. May 6, 2008

Big Black Holes Cook Flambeed Stellar Pancakes - According to two astrophysicists from Paris Observatory, the fate of stars that venture too close to massive black holes could be even more violent than previously believed. May 5, 2008

Artificial Intelligence Boosts Science From Mars - Artificial intelligence (AI) being used at the European Space Operations Centre is giving a powerful boost to ESA's Mars Express as it searches for signs of past or present life on the Red Planet. May 2, 2008

Ultra-dense Galaxies Found In Early Universe - A team of astronomers looking at the universe's distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun. May 1, 2008

Shoulder Motor Balks On Opportunity Rover's Robotic Arm - A small motor in the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity that began stalling occasionally more than two years ago has become more troublesome recently. April 29, 2008

Dramatic Collisions Trigger Bursts Of Star Formation - Interacting galaxies are found throughout the Universe, sometimes as dramatic collisions that trigger bursts of star formation, on other occasions as stealthy mergers that result in new galaxies. April 25, 2008

Glaciers Reveal Martian Climate Has Been Recently Active - The prevailing thinking is that Mars is a planet whose active climate has been confined to the distant past. About 3.5 billion years ago, the Red Planet had extensive flowing water and then fell quiet - deadly quiet. April 24, 2008

Stellar Birth In The Galactic Wilderness - A new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows baby stars sprouting in the backwoods of a galaxy - a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy's bustling center. April 23, 2008

Could There Be Life On Saturn's Moon Enceladus? - Could microbial life exist inside Enceladus, where no sunlight reaches, photosynthesis is impossible and no oxygen is available? April 22, 2008

What Are The Odds Of Finding Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life? - Is there anybody out there? Probably not, according to a scientist from the University of East Anglia. April 21, 2008

Lingering Star Streams Skirt Two Nearby Spiral Galaxies - An international team of astronomers has identified huge star streams in the outskirts of two nearby spiral galaxies. For the first time, they have obtained a panoramic overview of an example of galactic cannibalism similar to that involving the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy in the vicinity of the Milky Way. April 18, 2008

Hubble Pinpoints Location Of Record-breaking Cosmic Explosion - Peering across 7.5 billion light-years and halfway back to the Big Bang, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the fading optical counterpart of a powerful gamma ray burst that holds the record for being the intrinsically brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth. April 16, 2008

Spitzer Sees Shining Stellar Sphere - Millions of clustered stars glisten like an iridescent opal in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. April 15, 2008

NASA Spacecraft Images Mars Moon In Color And In 3D - A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars' two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. April 14, 2008

New Rocky Planet Found In Constellation Leo - Spanish and UCL (University College London) scientists have discovered a possible terrestrial-type planet orbiting a star in the constellation of Leo. April 11, 2008

Research Reveals Internet "Black Holes" - Sometimes you try to reach a site and mysteriously you can't get to it. Perhaps you think its simply your imagination, something wrong with your computer, or perhaps the site is under attack. Or maybe the server that the site is hosted on went down. April 10, 2008

Old Galaxies Stick Together In The Young Universe - Using the most sensitive images ever obtained with the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT), astronomers have found convincing evidence that galaxies which look old early in the history of the Universe ... April 9, 2008

Magnetic Substorms From Ground And Space - One of the most dynamic events in the interaction between the Sun and the Earth is a ‘substorm’, an explosive reshaping of the Earth’s outer magnetic field. April 8, 2008

Black Hole Discovered In Center Of Enigmatic Omega Centauri - A new discovery has resolved some of the mystery surrounding Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. April 7, 2008

New Views On The Sun's Startling Magnetic Fountains - Astronomers have known for decades that the Sun has a very dynamic atmosphere. Huge fountains of hot gas erupt in the atmosphere, or corona, every few minutes, travelling at tens of thousands of km per hour and reaching great heights. April 4, 2008

Smallest Black Hole Ever Discovered Has Amazing Tidal Force - Using a new technique, two NASA scientists have identified the lightest known black hole. April 3, 2008

Two New Star Systems Are First Of Their Kind Ever Found - Astronomers have spied a faraway star system that is so unusual, it was one of a kind - until its discovery helped them pinpoint a second one that was much closer to home. April 1, 2008

Huge Meteorite Impact Found In UK - Evidence of the biggest meteorite ever to hit the British Isles has been found by scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Aberdeen. March 31, 2008

Evidence Of A Planet Forming? - Astrophysicists have a new window into the formation of planets. Ben R. Oppenheimer, Assistant Curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues have imaged a structure within the disk of material coalescing from the gas and dust cloud surrounding a well-studied star, AB Aurigae. March 27, 2008

Ocean May Exist Beneath Titan's Crust - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon Titan. March 26, 2008

Ancient Asteroids Formed At Solar System's Start - Using visible and infrared data collected from telescopes on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, a team of scientists, led by the University of Maryland's Jessica Sunshine, have identified three asteroids that appear to be among our Solar System's oldest objects. March 25, 2008

Biggest Gamma Ray Burst Explosion Ever - A powerful stellar explosion detected March 19 by NASA's Swift satellite has shattered the record for the most distant object that could be seen with the naked eye. March 24, 2008

Mars, Earth And Moon From 'Unique Planetary Nursery' - A study of meteorites suggests that Mars, the Earth and the Moon share a common composition from ‘growing up’ in a unique planetary nursery in the inner solar system. March 21, 2008

Hubble Finds First Organic Molecule On Extrasolar Planet - The tell-tale signature of the molecule methane in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet HD 189733b has been found with the Hubble Space Telescope. March 20, 2008

New Luminous Spots Found On Jupiter - Scientists have observed unexpected luminous spots on Jupiter caused by its moon Io. Besides displaying the most spectacular volcanic activity in the solar system, Io causes auroras on its mother planet that are similar to the Northern Lights on Earth. March 19, 2008

Exploring Mars: Icy Promethei Planum - Promethei Planum, an area seasonally covered with a more than 3500 m thick layer of ice in the martian south polar region, was the subject of the High Resolution Stereo Camera’s focus on 22 September 2005 as Mars Express was in orbit above the Red Planet. March 18, 2008

Explosion Of New Life Coincided With Hundreds Of Meteorite Impacts - Meteorite impacts are often associated with huge disasters, mass extinction and why the dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the Earth some 65 million years ago. March 17, 2008

Puzzling 'Eye Of A Hurricane' On Venus - Venus Express has constantly been observing the south pole of Venus and has found it to be surprisingly fickle. March 14, 2008

How The Peruvian Meteorite Made It To Earth - It made news around the world: On Sept. 15, 2007, an object hurtled through the sky and crashed into the Peruvian countryside. Scientists dispatched to the site near the village of Carancas found a gaping hole in the ground. March 13, 2008

Cassini Spacecraft To Dive Into Water Plume Of Saturn Moon - NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make an unprecedented "in your face" flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12. March 12, 2008

Seeing Dark Filaments Inside A Molecular Cloud - Astronomers have measured the distribution of mass inside a dark filament in a molecular cloud with an amazing level of detail and to great depth. March 10, 2008

Mars And Venus Are Surprisingly Similar - Using two ESA spacecraft, planetary scientists are watching the atmospheres of Mars and Venus being stripped away into space. March 7, 2008

Last Confessions Of A Dying Star - Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures. March 6, 2008

Avalanches On Mars Photographed By NASA Spacecraft - A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole. March 4, 2008

Did A Mega-collision Alter Venus? - A mega-collision between two large embryonic planets could have created Venus as we know it, according to a new paper by a Cardiff University scientist. February 29, 2008

Galaxy Ablaze With Starbirth - Imagine looking at a tree through eyeglasses that only allow red light to pass through. The tree is going to look a lot different than how it would look without the glasses. February 28, 2008

Spinning Magnet Of A Sun-like Star - An international group of astronomers that includes the University of Hawaii's Evgenya Shkolnik have discovered that the sun-like star tau Bootis flipped its magnetic field from north to south sometime during the last year. February 27, 2008

Saturn May Be Surrounded By Near-Invisible Rings - Gaps in the soup of high energy particles near the orbits of two of Saturn's tiny moons indicate that Saturn may be surrounded by undiscovered, near-invisible partial rings. February 26, 2008

Sun Will Vaporize Earth In 7.6 Billion Years - New calculations by University of Sussex astronomers predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun in about 7.6 billion years unless the Earth’s orbit can be altered. February 25, 2008

Unique Martian Formation Reveals Brief Bursts Of Water - Researchers from the United States and the Netherlands report that several formations on Mars indicate incidents of rapid release of water from the planet's interior. February 22, 2008

Titan's Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves On Earth - Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. February 21, 2008

Mars Images Show Topography Of Red Planet - Mars is about to come into 3D focus as never before, thanks to the data from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). February 20, 2008

One Of Saturn's Rings Does The Housecleaning - One of Saturn's rings does housecleaning, soaking up material gushing from the fountains on Saturn's tiny ice moon Enceladus, according to new observations from the Cassini spacecraft. February 19, 2008

Possible Progenitor Of Special Supernova Type Detected - Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have reported the possible detection of a binary star system that was later destroyed in a supernova explosion. February 15, 2008

Hubble Finds Strong Contender For Galaxy Distance Record - The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with a boost from a natural “zoom lens”, has found the strongest evidence so far for a galaxy with a redshift significantly above 7. February 14, 2008

Light Echoes Whisper The Distance To A Star - Taking advantage of the presence of light echoes, a team of astronomers have used an ESO telescope to measure, at the 1% precision level, the distance of a Cepheid - a class of variable stars that constitutes one of the first steps in the cosmic distance ladder. February 13, 2008

Supercomputer Will Help Scientists Listen For Black Holes - Scientists hope that a new supercomputer being built by Syracuse University's Department of Physics may help them identify the sound of a celestial black hole. February 12, 2008

Black Holes May Pull Apart, Reignite White Dwarf Stars - A strange and violent fate awaits a white dwarf star that wanders too close to a moderately massive black hole. February 7, 2008

Brilliant But Fuzzy Galaxy May Be Aftermath Of Multi-galaxy Collision - The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil – the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies. February 6, 2008

Gas 'Finger' Points To Galaxies' Future - Like a fork piercing a fried egg, a giant finger of hydrogen gas is poking through our Milky Way Galaxy from outside, astronomers using CSIRO radio telescopes at Parkes and Narrabri have found. February 5, 2008

Traces Of The Martian Past In The Terby Crater - The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express has returned striking scenes of the Terby crater on Mars. February 4, 2008

Could An Asteroid Hit Planet Earth, Again? - Earth dodged a bullet today, when asteroid TU24 passed within 540,000 kilometers of our planet, which is just down the street on a galactic scale. Tomorrow, another asteroid – 2007 WD5 – will zip past Mars at a distance of only 26,000 kilometers away. February 1, 2008

New Light On Dark Energy - Astronomers have used ESO's Very Large Telescope to measure the distribution and motions of thousands of galaxies in the distant Universe. January 31, 2008

Hyperfast Star Proven To Be Alien - A young star is speeding away from the Milky Way so fast that astronomers have been puzzled by where it came from; based on its young age it has traveled too far to have come from our galaxy. January 30, 2008

Dramatic Wind Action Detailed On Mars - Mars has an ethereal, tenuous atmosphere with less than one-percent the surface pressure of Earth, which challenges scientists to explain complex, wind-sculpted landforms seen with unprecedented detail in images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. January 29, 2008

Mystery Of Jupiter's Jets Uncovered - At the end of March 2007, scientists all over the world observed with surprise and awe a rare change in the atmosphere of Jupiter. January 28, 2008

Dinosaur-killing Meteor Made Bigger Splash - The most detailed three-dimensional seismic images yet of the Chicxulub crater, a mostly submerged and buried impact crater on the Mexico coast, may modify a theory explaining the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth 65 million years ago. January 25, 2008

Hot Cyclones Churn At Both Ends Of Saturn - Despite more than a decade of winter darkness, Saturn's north pole is home to an unexpected hot spot remarkably similar to one at the planet's sunny south pole. The source of its heat is a mystery. January 23, 2008

Ice Clouds Put Mars In The Shade - Until now, Mars has generally been regarded as a desert world, where a visiting astronaut would be surprised to see clouds scudding across the orange sky. January 22, 2008

MESSENGER Reveals Mercury In New Detail - As MESSENGER approached Mercury on January 14, 2008, the spacecraft’s Narrow-Angle Camera on the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument captured this view of the planet’s rugged, cratered landscape illuminated obliquely by the Sun. January 18, 2008

Life's Ingredients Detected In Far Off Galaxy - Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide - two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids - in a galaxy some 250 million light years away. January 17, 2008

Dark Matter Found Tugging At Galaxies In Supercluster - Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to dissect one of the largest structures in the Universe as part of a quest to understand the violent lives of galaxies. January 16, 2008

Have Astronomers Observed The Aftermath Of A Distant Planetary Collision? - Astronomers have announced that a mystery object orbiting a star 170 light-years from Earth might have formed from the collision and merger of two protoplanets. January 15, 2008

Hubble Finds Double Einstein Ring - The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. January 14, 2008

An Inconvenient Galaxy Arms Winding 'Backwards' - Discovery of two new components within a puzzling spiral galaxy confirm it must have a pair of arms winding in the opposite direction from most galaxies, according to new results. January 11, 2008

Astronomy Team Discovers Ancestors Of Milky Way-type Galaxies - Astronomers at Rutgers and Penn State universities have discovered galaxies in the distant universe that are ancestors of spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. January 10, 2008

Red Dust In Planet-forming Disk May Harbor Precursors To Life - Astronomers at the Carnegie Institution have found the first indications of highly complex organic molecules in the disk of red dust surrounding a distant star. January 9, 2008

Stardust Formed Close To Sun - Samples of the material picked up during the NASA Stardust mission indicate that parts of the comet Wild 2 actually formed in an area close to the sun. January 8, 2008

NASA Mars Images Reveals a Doorway Structure - There is a strange door-like structure at the base of the mountain formation from a NASA image of Mars that is causing a stir. January 7, 2008

White Dwarf Pulses Like A Pulsar - New observations from Suzaku, a joint Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA X-ray observatory, have challenged scientists’ conventional understanding of white dwarfs. January 4, 2008

Triple Cosmic Collision Of Galaxies Stuns Astronomers - Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered a stunning rare case of a triple merger of galaxies. January 2, 2008

Exoplanet Reflected Light Detected For The First Time - An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Svetlana Berdyugina of ETH Zurich's Institute of Astronomy, has for the first time ever been able to detect and monitor the visible light that is scattered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. December 31, 2007

Jets Are a Real Drag - Astronomers have found the best evidence yet of matter spiraling outward from a young, still-forming star in fountain-like jets. Due to the spiral motion, the jets help the star to grow by drawing angular momentum from the surrounding accretion disk. December 28, 2007

Mysterious Cosmic Powerhouses Explored - By working in synergy with a ground-based telescope array, the joint Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/NASA Suzaku X-ray observatory is shedding new light on some of the most energetic objects in our galaxy, but objects that remain shrouded in mystery. December 27, 2007

Astronomers Monitor Asteroid To Pass Near Mars - Astronomers funded by NASA are monitoring the trajectory of an asteroid estimated to be 50 meters (164 feet) wide that is expected to cross Mars' orbital path early next year. December 26, 2007

Mountains Discovered On Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon - By analyzing images from NASA’s Cassini Radar instrument, a Brigham Young University professor helped discover and analyze mountains on Saturn’s largest moon, additional evidence that it has some of the most earthlike processes of any celestial body in the solar system. December 25, 2007

Evidence Of 'Habitable Niche' On Mars - Inch by power-conserving inch, drivers on Earth have moved the Mars rover Spirit to a spot where it has its best chance at surviving a third Martian winter - and where it will celebrate its fourth anniversary (in Earth years) since bouncing down on Mars for a projected 90-day mission in January 2004. December 24, 2007

Origin Of Solar System Dated - UC Davis researchers have dated the earliest step in the formation of the solar system - when microscopic interstellar dust coalesced into mountain-sized chunks of rock - to 4,568 million years ago, within a range of about 2,080,000 years. December 21, 2007

Intergalactic 'Shot In The Dark' Shocks Astronomers - When a shot is fired, one expects to see a person with a gun. In the same way, whenever a giant star explodes, astronomers expect to see a galaxy of stars surrounding the site of the blast. December 20, 2007

'Death Star' Black Hole Fires At Neighboring Galaxy - A jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy strikes the edge of another galaxy. This is the first time such an interaction has been found. December 19, 2007

Largest Digital Survey Of The Milky Way Released - A collaboration of over 50 astronomers, The IPHAS consortium, led from the UK, with partners in Europe, USA, Australia, has released today (10th December 2007) the first comprehensive optical digital survey of our own Milky Way. December 18, 2007

Extrasolar Planet Might Indeed Be Habitable - In April, a European team of astronomers announced the discovery of two possibly habitable Earth-like planets. Two new detailed studies of this system confirm that one of the planets might indeed be located within the habitable zone around the star Gliese 581. December 17, 2007

Mars Rover Investigates Signs Of Steamy Martian Past - Researchers using NASA's twin Mars rovers are sorting out two possible origins for one of Spirit's most important discoveries, while also getting Spirit to a favorable spot for surviving the next Martian winter. December 14, 2007

Hazy Red Sunset On Extrasolar Planet - A team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to detect, for the first time, strong evidence of hazes in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star. December 13, 2007

Building Blocks Of Life Formed On Mars, Scientists Conclude - Organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen and form the building blocks of all life on Earth. By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have shown for the first time that building blocks of life formed on Mars early in its history. December 12, 2007

Voyager 2 Proves Solar System Is Squashed - NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has followed its twin Voyager 1 into the solar system's final frontier, a vast region at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind runs up against the thin gas between the stars. December 11, 2007

Odd Little Star Has Magnetic Personality - A dwarf star with a surprisingly magnetic personality and a huge hot spot covering half its surface area is showing astronomers that life as a cool dwarf is not necessarily as simple and quiet as they once assumed. December 10, 2007

Travel Maps Of The Lunar North Pole - A new map obtained with SMART-1 data shows the geography and illumination of the lunar north pole. Such maps will be of great use for future lunar explorers. December 7, 2007

Astronomers Discover How White Dwarf Stars Get Their 'Kicks' - University of British Columbia astronomer Harvey Richer and UBC graduate student Saul Davis have discovered that white dwarf stars are born with a natal kick, explaining why these smoldering embers of Sun-like stars are found on the edge rather than at the centre of globular star clusters. December 6, 2007

Dark Matter In Newborn Universe Doused Earliest Stars - Perhaps the first stars in the newborn universe did not shine, but instead were invisible "dark stars" 400 to 200,000 times wider than the sun and powered by the annihilation of mysterious dark matter, a University of Utah study concludes. December 5, 2007

Stunning Image Of Nearby Spiral Galaxy - Hubble has sent back an early Christmas card with this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the nearby spiral galaxy Messier 74. December 3, 2007

Astronomers Discover Youngest Solar Systems Ever - Astronomers at the University of Michigan have found what are believed to be some of the youngest solar systems yet detected. November 30, 2007

Earth-like Lightning On Venus, European Space Probe Confirms - Venus is a hellish place of high temperatures and crushing air pressure. The European Space Agency's Venus Express mission adds into this mix the first confirmation that the Venusian atmosphere generates its own lightning. November 29, 2007

Watching Galaxies Grow Old Gracefully - In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble made the startling discovery that our Milky Way galaxy is not alone. It is just one of many galaxies, or "island universes," as Hubble dubbed them, swimming in the sea of space. November 28, 2007

New Light On Early Formation Of Earth And Mars - A team of scientists from NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the University of California, Davis (UCD) has found that terrestrial planets such as the Earth and Mars may have remained molten in their early histories for tens of millions of years. November 27, 2007

Mars Express - 5000 orbits And Counting - On 25 December 2003, Europe’s first Mars explorer arrived at the Red Planet. Almost four years later, Mars Express continues to rewrite the text books as its instruments send back a stream of images and other data. Today, the spacecraft reached another milestone in its remarkable career by completing 5000 orbits of Mars. November 26, 2007

Planets Forming In Pleiades Star Cluster - Rocky terrestrial planets, perhaps like Earth, Mars or Venus, appear to be forming or to have recently formed around a star in the Pleiades ("seven sisters") star cluster, the result of "monster collisions" of planets or planetary embryos. November 23, 2007

Astronomers Discover Stars With Carbon Atmospheres - Astronomers have discovered white dwarf stars with pure carbon atmospheres. The discovery could offer a unique view into the hearts of dying stars. November 22, 2007

Astronomers Say Moons Like Ours Are Uncommon - The next time you take a moonlit stroll, or admire a full, bright-white moon looming in the night sky, you might count yourself lucky. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that moons like Earth's - that formed out of tremendous collisions - are uncommon in the universe, arising at most in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems. November 21, 2007

Hubble Zooms In On Heart Of Mystery Comet - The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has probed the bright core of Comet 17P/Holmes which, to the delight of sky watchers, mysteriously brightened by nearly a million-fold in a 24-hour period beginning October 23, 2007. November 19, 2007

How To Make The Brightest Supernova Ever - A supernova observed last year was so bright - about 100 times as luminous as a typical supernova - that it challenged the theoretical understanding of what causes supernovae. November 16, 2007

Nearby Barred Spiral Galaxy Shows Off Its Warped Disc - Known until now as a simple number in a catalogue, NGC 134, the 'Island in the Universe' is replete with remarkable attributes, and the VLT has clapped its eyes on them. November 13, 2007

Mars Express Probes The Red Planet's Most Unusual Deposits - The radar system on ESA’s Mars Express has uncovered new details about some of the most mysterious deposits on Mars: The Medusae Fossae Formation. It has given the first direct measurement of the depth and electrical properties of these materials, providing new clues about their origin. November 9, 2007

Astronomers Discover Record Fifth Planet Around Nearby Star 55 Cancri - Astronomers have discovered a record-breaking fifth planet around the nearby star 55 Cancri, making it the only star aside from the sun known to have five planets. November 7, 2007

Three New Exo-planets Discovered - The UK's leading team of planet-hunting astronomers, the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP), have announced the discovery of three new planets. November 6, 2007

A Big Chunk Of The Universe Is Missing - Again - Not only has a large chunk of the universe thought to have been found in 2002 apparently gone missing again but it is taking some friends with it, according to new research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). November 5, 2007

Supermassive Black Holes Produce Powerful Galaxy-shaping Winds - Supermassive black holes can produce powerful winds that shape a galaxy and determine their own growth, confirms a group of scientists from Rochester Institute of Technology. November 2, 2007

Hubble Spies Shells Of Sparkling Stars Around Quasar - New images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope - part of a research project led by UC Riverside's Gabriela Canalizo - have revealed the wild side of an elliptical galaxy, nearly two billion light-years away, that previously had been considered mild-mannered. October 31, 2007

Mystery Comet Explodes Into Brightness - A once-faint comet has made a sudden leap from obscurity to center stage. Comet 17P Holmes, now visible to northern hemisphere residents, increased its brightness by a factor of one million this week, going from magnitude 17 to 2. October 30, 2007

Detailed Picture Of Frigid Red Planet Emerges - Mars, like Earth, is a climate-fickle water planet. The main difference, of course, is that water on the frigid Red Planet is rarely liquid, preferring to spend almost all of its time traveling the world as a gas or churning up the surface as ice. October 29, 2007

Missing Black Hole Report: Hundreds Found! - Astronomers have unmasked hundreds of black holes hiding deep inside dusty galaxies billions of light-years away. October 26, 2007

Home Computers Help Researchers Better Understand Universe - Want to help unravel the mysteries of the universe? A new distributed computing project designed by a University of Illinois researcher allows people around the world to participate in cutting-edge cosmology research by donating their unused computing cycles. October 25, 2007

Five Years Of Space Exploration With ESA's Integral - With eyes that peer into the most energetic phenomena in the universe, ESA's Integral has been setting records, discovering the unexpected and helping understanding the unknown over its first five years. October 24, 2007

Asteroid Is 'Practice Case' For Potential Hazards - In research that could aid decisions about future asteroids on a collision course with Earth, MIT scientists have for the first time determined the composition of a near-Earth asteroid that has a very slight possibility of someday hitting our planet. October 23, 2007

Heaviest Stellar Black Hole Discovered In Nearby Galaxy - Astronomers have located an exceptionally massive black hole in orbit around a huge companion star. This result has intriguing implications for the evolution and ultimate fate of massive stars. October 22, 2007

Mars Express: Hummocky And Shallow Maunder Crater - The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has obtained pictures of the Noachis Terra region on Mars, in particular, the striking Maunder crater. October 19, 2007

Hubble Shows 'Baby' Galaxy Is Not So Young After All - The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found out the true nature of a dwarf galaxy that astronomers had for a long time identified as one of the youngest galaxies in the Universe. October 18, 2007

Most Powerful Supernova Is 100 Billion Times Brighter Than The Sun - Astronomer Robert Quimby has done it again. Found the most luminous supernova ever, that is. October 17, 2007

Long-lost, Dangerous Asteroid Is Found Again - Echoing the re-discovery of America by the Spanish long after an earlier Viking reconnaissance, astronomers have learned that a recently observed asteroid - one that could potentially hit the Earth - was actually first observed nearly a half-century ago. October 16, 2007

Saturn's Moon Titan - Land Of Lakes And Seas - The best views of the hydrocarbon lakes and seas on Saturn's moon Titan taken by the Cassini spacecraft are now available. October 15, 2007

Pluto-bound Spacecraft Sees Changes In Jupiter System - The voyage of NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft through the Jupiter system earlier this year provided a bird’s-eye view of a dynamic planet that has changed since the last close-up looks by NASA spacecraft. October 12, 2007

Cassini Pinpoints Hot Sources of Jets on Enceladus - A recent analysis of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft provides conclusive evidence that the jets of fine, icy particles spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus originate from the hottest spots on the moon's "tiger stripe" fractures that straddle the moon's south polar region. October 11, 2007

Cassini Is On The Trail Of A Runaway Mystery - NASA scientists are on the trail of Iapetus' mysterious dark side, which seems to be home to a bizarre "runaway" process that is transporting vaporized water ice from the dark areas to the white areas of the Saturnian moon. October 10, 2007

Extreme Star Cluster Bursts Into Life - The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular image of NGC 3603, a giant nebula hosting one of the most prominent massive young clusters in the Milky Way, thus supplying a prime template for star formation studies. October 9, 2007

SOHO Mission Discovers Rare Comet - The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has discovered a rare periodic comet. SOHO has already discovered more than 1,350 comets during its mission, but this is the first time one of its discoveries officially has been designated periodic. October 5, 2007

Lunar Outpost Plans Taking Shape - NASA's blueprints for an outpost on the moon are shaping up. The agency's Lunar Architecture Team has been hard at work, looking at concepts for habitation, rovers, and space suits. October 4, 2007

Comet Collides With Solar Hurricane - A NASA satellite has captured the first images of a collision between a comet and a solar hurricane. It is the first time scientists have witnessed such an event on another cosmic body. October 3, 2007

A Warm South Pole? Yes, on Neptune! - An international team of astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope has discovered that the south pole of Neptune is much hotter than the rest of the planet. This is consistent with the fact that it is late southern summer and this region has been in sunlight for about 40 years. October 2, 2007

Tiny Animals Exposed To Outer Space - “For the first time ever, animals are now being exposed to an unmitigated space environment, with both vacuum conditions and cosmic radiation,” says the ecologist Ingemar Jönsson, a researcher at Kristianstad University in Sweden. October 1, 2007

Baby Booms And Birth Control In Space - Stars in galaxies are a bit similar to people: during the first phase of their existence they grow rapidly, after which a stellar birth control occurs in most galaxies. September 28, 2007

Orphan Stars Found In Long Galaxy Tail - Astronomers have found evidence that stars have been forming in a long tail of gas that extends well outside its parent galaxy. This discovery suggests that such "orphan" stars may be much more prevalent than previously thought. September 25, 2007

NASA Orbiter Finds Possible Cave Skylights On Mars - NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caverns elsewhere on the Red Planet. September 24, 2007

Early Star Formation In The Universe Illuminated - A groundbreaking study has provided new insight into the way the first stars were formed at the start of the Universe, some 13 billion years ago. September 20, 2007

Life On Mars 'Pregnancy Test' Successfully Launched - Key components of a new approach to discover life on Mars were successfully launched into space Friday as part of a twelve-day, low-Earth orbit experiment to assess their survivability in the space radiation environment - a prelude future journeys to Mars. September 19, 2007

Hubble Captures Stars Going Out In Style - The colorful, intricate shapes in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveal how the glowing gas ejected by dying Sun-like stars evolves dramatically over time. September 18, 2007

Exoplanet Offers Clues To Earth's Future - An international team of astronomers that includes Steve Kawaler of Iowa State University has announced the first discovery of a planet orbiting a star near the end of its life. September 17, 2007

Astronomers Find Bizarre Planet-mass Object Orbiting Neutron Star - Using NASA’s Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellites, astronomers have discovered one of the most bizarre planet-mass objects ever found. September 14, 2007

Mars Rovers Survive Severe Dust Storms - Two months after sky-darkening dust from severe storms nearly killed NASA's Mars exploration rovers, the solar-powered robots are awake and ready to continue their mission. September 11, 2007

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