Space, Astronomy and Planetary Science News

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the first close-up image after beginning its orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta. On Friday, July 15, Dawn became the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

NASA's Dawn spacecraft on July 16, 2011 became the first probe ever to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

A new study combining data from the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory has turned up a surprise

New data from the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory have revealed surprisingly large amounts of cold dust in the remnant of the famous supernova SN1987A, which astronomers observed 24 years ago in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring

Astronomers are puzzled by the announcement that the masses of the largest objects in the universe appear to depend on which method is used to weigh them

In December 2010, a pair of mismatched stars in the southern constellation Crux whisked past each other at a distance closer than Venus orbits the sun. The system possesses a so-far unique blend of a hot and massive star with a compact fast-spinning pulsa

Brilliant beacon, powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, is by far the brightest object yet discovered in the early Universe

Using the VISIR instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have imaged a complex and bright nebula around the supergiant star Betelgeuse in greater detail than ever before

Researchers at the University of Leicester are investigating the possible eventual fate of the solar system by examining 'white dwarf' stars elsewhere in our galaxy

This glowing emerald nebula seen by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is reminiscent of the glowing ring wielded by the superhero Green Lantern