Recent News in...

Astrophysics

NASA's GLAST satellite launched into orbit on 05 June. More....

NASA's Swift satellite has caught a star going supernova in the act. While astronomers were taking images of SN 2007uy in the galaxy NGC 2770, they noted an extremely bright, five-minute X-ray outburst from another location in the same galaxy. The visible light from what is now designated as SN 2008D appeared a few days later. More....

A supernova that occurred 140 years ago in the Milky Way galaxy has been discovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and NRAO's Very Large Array. The supernova remnant, designated G1.9+0.3, was previously undiscovered due to obscurration by dust and gas. More....

Heliophysics

NASA's THEMIS mission, five identical spacecraft dedicating to tracking the causes of magnetospheric substorms, was successfully launched at 18:01 EST on 17 February. More...

Lunar and Planetary Science

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) Mission has been selected as the next NASA Mars Scout mission, planned for launch in late 2013. For more, see the NASA press release.

The Rosetta spacecraft flew within 800 km of asteroid 2867 Steins on 5 September at 18:58 UTC (2:58 p.m. EDT). For more, see the ESA press release.

The Phoenix lander has positively confirmed the presence of water ice on Mars. This marks the first direct in-situ detection of martian water. NASA also announced the mission will be extended through 30 September. See the University of Arizona news release for more details.