Exhibit Explores Dazzling Beauty of Space Photography

Lacey Henry

Visions of the Universe exhibit showcases captivating cosmic images

A new exhibit at the National Maritime Museum in London celebrates the beauty of space photography and its role in scientific discoveries. Up until September 15, Visions of the Universe will feature more than 100 dazzling images of space. The exhibit takes visitors on a cosmic journey, covering everything from the earliest findings of Galileo to the latest footage from the Mars rover Curiosity...

Key Milestone Passed in Construction of the James Webb Space Telescope

Steve Nerlich

Construction of the crucial “backbone” of the James Webb Telescope has now been completed. Image Credit: NASA.

The James Webb Space Telescope, a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency, is planned to be launched in 2018 on an ESA Ariane 5 rocket. The Northrop Grumman Corporation [...]

Herschel Space Telescope Shut Down For Good, ESA Announces

Adam Toobin

PARIS — Ground controllers put Europe's Herschel Space Observatory to sleep Monday (June 17), turning off the infrared observatory after squeezing every bit of engineering value from the spacecraft since it ceased scientific work in April.

Engineers sent the final commands to Herschel at 8:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT) in an emotional ceremony at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany...

Inexplicably High Speed Winds On Venus Baffle Astronomers (VIDEO)

Michael Rundle

There's something strange happening on Venus. Which would be worrying, but given that the surface of the second planet from our sun is a boiling hot mass of carbon dioxide, sulphuric acid clouds and vaporised oceans, there's always something strange happening on Venus.

On the other hand, this time around it's even stranger than normal.

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NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Can Be Yours!

Douglas Cobb

That’s right, NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover can be yours — if you want to build and own a Lego version of it, anyway! NASA has been in the news a lot, lately. There have been articles ranging from the huge amount of new information that’s being learned about Mars, the Red Planet, to their Asteroid [...]

Determining the (minimum) heights of atmospheres on exoplanets

Lauren Weiss

Title: A simple, quantitative method to infer the minimum atmospheric height of small exoplanets Authors: Kipping, Spiegel, and Sasselov First Author’s Institution: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Introduction One of the major questions among astronomers who study planets around other stars is, “What kinds of atmospheres do exoplanets have?” This question is extremely challenging to answer [...]