Space News & Blog Articles

We celebrate Apollo 16 with a look back at photos from the mission that took two astronauts to the lunar surface for three days of exploration.

Orion descends, Leo walks sideways, the Dog Stars stand up straight, the Moon wanes past full, and at dawn, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn form a diagonal straight line.

Space exploration can serve as an antidote to war. And vice versa.

Even though Neptune is entering its version of summer, it's actually cooling down — except for its poles, which are mysteriously warming up.

People have been watching the annual Lyrid meteor shower for more than 2,700 years. Come join the crowd!

The U.S. Department of Defense has released data on some 1,000 bright fireballs. Scientists are still debating if the data confirm an interstellar meteor.

Two microphones on Mars, carried on NASA's Perseverance rover, are for the first time revealing the sounds of another planet.

It’s never too early to start getting excited — and begin planning — for an event as spectacular as a total solar eclipse.

The gibbous Moon passes through Leo and Virgo as it waxes toward full, forming new Moon-and-stars "lunarisms" (patterns) each evening. Mercury begins a new apparition in the sunset. At dawn, Jupiter emerges to join the lineup of Venus, Mars, and Saturn.

At the extremes: A hot Jupiter reveals extreme chemistry on a sizzling world, and a cold Jupiter sheds light on giant planet formation.

Share the joy of stargazing and become part of the legacy of astronomy.

Astronomers aren't holding back this year, with brand-new submissions to this year's highly prestigious (and fictitious) Acta Prima Aprilia.

The evening Moon climbs toward the Arch of Spring, then through it. Orion's Belt levels, the Leaps of the Gazelle cross the zenith, and Saturn and Mars conjoin near brilliant Venus in early dawn.

With the arrival of April, you’re likely to spend more time outdoors under the stars. So why not bring along our monthly Sky Tour astronomy podcast? It provides an informative and entertaining 12-minute guided tour of the nighttime sky. Download the April episode to explore the fascinating movement of four planets in the sky before dawn.

Join us in Pasadena 12-16 June for exceptional science at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a single star whose light has traveled for 12.9 billion years to Earth — the most distant star known.

Like comets? We've got 11 frozen fuzzies to share with you in the coming months, including a couple that could become fine binocular objects.

Conventional planet formation scenarios have Neptune and Uranus forming closer to the Sun. But a new study shows that the ice giant planets could have formed right where they are now.

The transit of a large cloud of protoplanetary rubble across the face of a young star gave the Spitzer Space Telescope our best view yet of planetary evolution in action.

This faint ring of radio emission might signal a momentous event in galactic evolution. Then again, it might be something else entirely.

What constellation trots behind Sirius and Canis Major across the southern sky? Puppis, not a puppy but the poop deck of Argo Navis. In this dark of the Moon, try for the Clown-Face Nebula high in Gemini. And the three dawn planets dance through two more isosceles triangles.