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Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 26 The Milky Way Sets Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (TWAN, Earth and Stars) Explanation: Under dark skies the setting of the Milky Way can be a dramatic sight. Stretching nearly parallel to the horizon, this rich, edge-on vista of our galaxy above the dusty Namibian desert stretches from bright, southern Centaurus (left) to Cepheus in the north (right). From early August, the digitally...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 25 Closest Star has Potentially Habitable Planet Image Credit & License: Y. Beletsky (LCO), ESO, Pale Red Dot Team Explanation: The star closest to the Sun has a planet similar to the Earth. As announced yesterday, recent observations confirmed that this planet not only exists but inhabits a zone where its surface temperature could allow liquid water, a key ingredient for life on Earth. It is...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 24 Curiosity at Murray Buttes on Mars Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS Explanation: What are these unusual lumps on Mars? As NASA's robotic Curiosity rover continues rolling across Mars, it is now approaching Murray Buttes. Several of the 15-meter high buttes are visible ahead in this horizontally compressed 360-degree across image taken inside Gale Crater earlier this month. The buttes are thought similar to Earth buttes...

China has its sights set firmly on Mars and is aiming to launch its own rover to the red planet by 2020. New images have today provided the first glimpse of what this rover might look like when it launches at the end of the decade. As part of the announcement, China also launched a competition for members of the public to come up with a name and logo for the rover. China, which is pouring billions into its space programme and working to catch up with the US and Europe, announced in April it aims to send a spacecraft...

Despite almost two years of silence, NASA never stopped searching for its long lost spacecraft STEREO-B. NASA announced Sunday that it had re-established contact with STEREO-B after communications were lost in October 2014. Contact with the spacecraft -- which works in tandem with a second spacecraft STEREO-A to study the sun -- was lost during a test of one of its timers. Launched in October 2006, the STEREO mission includes two spacecraft -- one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other behind -- tasked with monitoring the flow of energy and matter from the sun to Earth. The spacecrafts...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 23 Gigantic Jet Lightning over China Image Credit & Copyright: Phebe Pan Explanation: That's no meteor. While watching and photographing this year's Perseid Meteor Shower, something unexpected happened: a gigantic jet erupted from a nearby cloud. The whole thing was over in a flash -- it lasted less than a second -- but was fortunately captured by an already-recording digital camera. Gigantic jets are a rare...

NASA’s Deep Space Network, or DSN, “established a lock on the STEREO-B (spacecraft’s) downlink carrier at 6:27 p.m. EDT,” NASA said in a statement. “The downlink signal was monitored by the Mission Operations team over several hours to characterize the attitude of the spacecraft and then transmitter high voltage was powered down to save battery power. ... Launched in 2006, the STEREO mission featured two spacecraft -- STEREO-A and STEREO-B -- designed to monitor solar activity from different locations, one “ahead” in its orbit and one “behind,” allowing scientists to see the entire star, not just the side facing Earth....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 22 Tutulemma: Solar Eclipse Analemma Image Credit & Copyright: Cenk E. Tezel and Tunç Tezel (TWAN) Explanation: If you went outside at exactly the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun's position change? With great planning and effort, such a series of images can be taken. The figure-8 path the Sun follows over the course of a...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 21 Map of Total Solar Eclipse Path in 2017 August Image Credit: Fred Espenak (NASA's GSFC), MrEclipse.com, Google Maps Explanation: Would you like to see a total eclipse of the Sun? If so, do any friends or relatives live near the path of next summer's eclipse? If yes again, then you might want to arrange a visit for one year from today. Next year on this...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 20 Gamma-rays and Comet Dust Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias) Explanation: Gamma-rays and dust from periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle plowed through planet Earth's atmosphere on the night of August 11/12. Impacting at about 60 kilometers per second the grains of comet dust produced this year's remarkably active Perseid meteor shower. This composite wide-angle image of aligned shower meteors covers a 4.5 hour...

NASA is dead set on leaving Low-Earth Orbit to go to the moon, Mars and other farther destinations. That means extending the space station's funding beyond 2024 is out of the question. Now, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Bill Hill has revealed what the agency wants to do with the ISS once astronauts move out. Instead of deorbiting it and sinking it into the ocean or breaking it apart to sell piece by piece, it apparently wants to hand the spacecraft over to a private corporation.

Attached to the station’s no-longer-needed shuttle port at the front of the station, the Boeing-built International Docking Adapter will allow spacecraft from both companies to bring crews to the outpost, ending NASA’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz ferry ships. A second IDA is expected to be attached in 2018. “It is amazing that now we’ve opened up a new chapter in the story of the International Space Station, putting the front door on this for future commercial vehicles,” radioed station commander Jeff Williams, who worked with astronaut Kate Rubins to attach and outfit the IDA. “Congratulations to the entire team.”...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 19 Perseid Fireball at Sunset Crater Image Credit & Copyright: Jeremy Perez Explanation: On the night of August 12, this bright Perseid meteor flashed above volcanic Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona, USA, planet Earth. Streaking along the summer Milky Way, its initial color is likely due to the shower meteor's characteristically high speed. Entering at 60 kilometers per second, Perseid meteors are capable of exciting green...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 18 Perseid Night at Yosemite Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Shaw Explanation: The 2016 Perseid meteor shower performed well on the night of August 11/12. The sky on that memorable evening was recorded from a perch overlooking Yosemite Valley, planet Earth, in this scene composed of 25 separate images selected from an all-night set of sequential exposures. Each image contains a single meteor and was placed...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 17 Meteor before Galaxy Image Credit & Copyright: Fritz Helmut Hemmerich Explanation: What's that green streak in front of the Andromeda galaxy? A meteor. While photographing the Andromeda galaxy last Friday, near the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower, a sand-sized rock from deep space crossed right in front of our Milky Way Galaxy's far-distant companion. The small meteor took only a fraction of a second...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 16 Five Planets and the Moon over Australia Image Credit & Copyright: Alex Cherney (Terrastro, TWAN) Explanation: It is not a coincidence that planets line up. That's because all of the planets orbit the Sun in (nearly) a single sheet called the plane of the ecliptic. When viewed from inside that plane -- as Earth dwellers are likely to do -- the planets all appear confined...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 15 Human as Spaceship Space Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, and J. Maiz- Apellániz (IAA); Acknowledgement: D. De Martin; Human Image Copyright: Charis Tsevis; Composition: R. J. Nemiroff Explanation: You are a spaceship soaring through the universe. So is your dog. We all carry with us trillions of microorganisms as we go through life. These multitudes of bacteria, fungi, and archaea have different DNA than you....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2016 August 14 The Keyhole in the Carina Nebula Image Credit: NASA, Hubble Heritage (AURA/STScI) Explanation: The dark dusty Keyhole Nebula gets its name from its unusual shape. The looping Keyhole, in this featured classic image by the Hubble Space Telescope, is a smaller region inside the larger Carina Nebula. Dramatic dark dust knots and complex features are sculpted by the winds and radiation of the Carina Nebula's...

For a 2-billion-year-long span, ending about 715 million years ago, Venus was likely a much more pleasant spot that it is today. To observe Venus now is to witness a dry and toxic hellscape, where the planet heats up to a scorching 864 degrees Fahrenheit. A super-strong electric wind is believed to suck the smallest traces of water into space. With apologies to Ian Malcolm, life as we know it could not find a way. But travel back in time a few billion years or so. Ancient Venus, according to a new computer model from NASA, would have been prime...

The hunt for exoplanets has been heating up in recent years. Since it began its mission in 2009, over four thousand exoplanet candidates discovered by the Kepler mission, several hundred of which have been confirmed to be “Earth-like” (i.e. terrestrial). And of these, some 216 planets have been shown to be both terrestrial and located within their parent star’s habitable zone (aka. “Goldilocks zone”).