Astronomy Cast Ep. 349: Mercury 7 – How the US picked the First Astronauts
Before the Apollo Program, there was the Gemini Program, and before Gemini came the Mercury Program. 7 elite astronauts chosen…
Watch the Rise and Fall of a Towering Inferno on the Sun
Caught on camera by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a prominence blazes hundreds of thousands of miles out from the Sun's surface (i.e.,…
Gaia Space Telescope Team Battles ‘Stray Light’ Problems At Start Of Mission
Europe's powerful Milky Way mapper is facing some problems as controllers ready the Gaia telescope for operations. It turns out…
How Much of the Universe is Black Holes?
We all fear black holes, but how many of them are there out there, really? Between the stellar mass black…
New Recipe For Saturn’s Orangey Moon Titan Is ‘Aromatic’ And Hazy
What's in all that browny orangey stuff in the atmosphere around Titan? It's a question that scientists have been trying…
‘Weird’ Dust Ring Baffles In Cloud That Will Give Birth To Giant Stars
Long after telescopes cease operating, their bounty of scientific data continues to amaze. Here's an example of that: this Herschel…
New Horizons Wakes Up for the Summer
While many kids in the U.S. are starting their school summer vacations, New Horizons is about to get back to work! Speeding…
An Ocean On Pluto’s Moon? Hopeful Scientists Will Keep An Eye Out For Cracks
It's a lot of speculation right now, but the buzz in a new NASA study is Pluto's largest moon (Charon)…
Hubble Hubba: Stars Are Being Born Around A Black Hole In Galaxy’s Center
Let's just casually look at this image of a galaxy 86 million light-years away from us. In the center of…
It’s Hurricane Season and NASA is Ready Like Never Before
What’s in the cards weather-wise for the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season? Although the start of astronomical summer for the northern…