Stop that Star!

It is stealing that planet's moon! Go here to read more.

Why did Sun stop making Sun Spots?

Because of changes beneath its surface? Possibly. Go here to read more.

Asteroids trapped by Neptune...

... where the gravitation attraction by Neptune and the Sun balance out to form a "trap" of sorts. Go here to read more.

Gamma-rays from a Nova

Not supernovae, which are the result of either a white dwarf blowing up or the core of a massive star collapsing upon itself, but a nova - a flash of light resulting from Hydrogen fusion beginning on the surface of a white dwarf resulting from material falling onto it from a companion star. The detection of gamma-rays means that particles are accelerated to really high energies in these explosions, just like in supernovae. Go here and here and here to learn more. Enjoy!

Mountains on Titan

Mountains on the Earth form from continental plates colliding with each other. Mountains on Saturn's moon, Titan? Well, it has to be something different because it has no plates. So what is it? Well, this moon appears to be shrinking ever so slightly as it cools, wrinkling the surface and forming mountains. Go here and here to read more.

Digging for Dark Matter

Not because it is concentrated deep underground, but because it can penetrate that far and little else can. Go here to read about a new type of experiment designed to detect these mysterious particles believed to make up 25% of the universe.

One Ring to Surround Them All

GALEX, an ultraviolet satellite, recently discovered rings of ultraviolet light (only produced by young, massive stars) around the core of galaxies which show no sign of ongoing star formation. Go here and here and here to read what is going on!

Awwww... So Cute....

Baby stars. Discovered in a survey of the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Clouds, as you can read here and here. Enjoy!

The Devil on Mars

Well, a dust devil at least. Enjoy!.

Space dust

Some pieces of genuine space dust were identified in the thousands of particles captured by the Stardust mission. Go here to read more. Neat!

3D view of a Supernova Explosion

Thanks to the Doppler Effect, the wavelength of light observed from an object moving relative to us is shifted depending on its velocity. Using this technique, astronomers were recently able to measure the velocity of the innermost gas ejected in a very nearby supernova explosion SN1987a, probing exactly how this star exploded in the first place. Read more about it here and here. Very exciting stuff!

Please don't twinkle light star

You really ruin the quality of my astronomy image. Ordinarily this would mean getting rid of the atmosphere (in general a bad thing) or building a telescope above it (e.g. Hubble), but people are developing techniques to take the twinkle out using something called "adaptive optics". Go here to read about a recent breakthrough in this technique.

Colliding Galaxies!

See a very pretty picture of such a collision here and here.

The Sun's Dark Heart

Well, at least according to this article. While it is entirely true that the Sun should have gravitational captured some dark matter particles - assuming, of course, that dark matter is truly composed of massive fundamental particles as currently believed but not yet proven - over its lifetime, but to say this is cooling the Sun's core is more than a bit extreme and speculative. Interesting idea though.

Saturn's heartbeat

Just like the Earth, Saturn powers a strong magnetic field. And just like the Earth's particles trapped in this magnetic field both emit radio waves as well as optical light (called aurora) when they enter the atmosphere. Saturn's radio emission as observed from Earth is pulsed due to its rotation, and it now turns out that its aurorae are pulsed with the same period and phase. Read more about it here.

Mimicking the Moon's Surface

on the Earth by smashing ions (charged particles, similar to those that fill the Sun's solar wind) into rocks (like the Moon's surface). You can read more about it here.

As dry as the Moon

Is actually pretty dry, at least below the surface. Go here to read more.

Next Mission to Mars

... is slowing taking shape with the selection of instruments that will ride on aboard. Go here, here, here, and here, and here, to read about what has been chosen.

Brown dwarf orbiting a star

Further adding to the debate if brown dwarfs - objects more massive than planets but don't have enough mass to have Hydrogen fusion in their core and turn into true stars - form like planets or stars. Read more here about this discovery.

Past Life on Mars?

Well, it might have been possible according to this article. There is a region of Mars with rocks similar to those on Earth formed near warm geothermal vents which on Earth are abundant on life. If any life formed at this location, the chemicals it produced (called "biomarkers") should still be detectable. That's it. Interesting, and something to definitely look for.

Spirit Fades

It increasingly looks like NASA's Mars Rover Spirit will not be phoning home any longer. Read more about it here and here. So long and thanks for all the science!

Planets orbiting planets

This is just awesome. Two gas giants orbiting each other as they both orbit the central star. Neat!

The Dunes on Titan

Sand dunes are shaped by wind as they blow across sand. Simple enough. They face the direction of the wind. Again, simple enough. Winds typically flow in the same directly as a planet rotate. Okay, makes sense. Yet the dunes on Titan are facing the direction opposite rotation. Huh? It's all the season's fault. Go here, here and here to read more.

Welcome Solar Dynamics Observatory!

To the suite of satellites studying the Sun. Read more about its capabilities and science goals here.

Hot spot of cosmic rays

Cosmic rays are very energetic charged particles produced in many places out in space which are constantly bombarding the Earth, just like photons - light particles. However, unlike photons, the paths of these particles are bent by the various magnetic fields which surround the Earth, fill our Solar System, stretch between stars, etc. Due to this bending, one expects cosmic rays to come equally from all regions of the sky assuming their original sources are fairly far away. However, there is mounting evidence that this isn't what is observed, as you can read here and here. Why? No one knows, though a nearby supernova remnant may provide some of the answer. Yet another mystery to be solved.

Dating the Solar System...

using the craters of the Moon. Go here to learn more.

Ahhh... SOFIA....

NASA's infrared telescope in a Boeing 747 - so it can go far above the Earth's atmosphere since infrared light is absorbed by water - is over-budget but is finally ready. Nature magazine doesn't approve, as you can read here and here.

The Confusing Spin-Down of Pulsars

Pulsars are believed to rapidly spinning neutron stars whose spin period increases very slowly but regularly - so regularly that there has been talking of using some of them as clock standards, even better than the atomic clocks currently used! However, not all pulsars spin-down so regularly. Read one possibility about why this might be the case here.

Mars's Early Atmosphere

Was apparently much denser, thicker, and richer in carbon dioxide that it is today. Go here to read how studying the chemical composition of rocks on Mars indicates this was the case.

That Flipping Black Holes

No, I'm not using a euphemism for swearing. Black holes can change the direction in which they spin (i.e, flip), and this can have some impressive results. Go here to learn more!

The Moon is Covered in Water!

Really? Well, sort of. Trapped in rocks and ice, not liquid water of course. Go here to learn more.