Current News

Items of interest to the Astronomical Community and the GRAAA

News updated on 04/30/2008 at 5.51 PM EDT

Meetings: More information can be found on the Meetings & Events page.

Cassini  |  Mars Exploration Program  |  MESSENGER  |  New Horizons

By an enormous burst of gravitational waves that accompanies the merger of two black holes the newly formed black hole was ejected from its galaxy. This extreme ejection event, which had been predicted by theorists, has now been observed in nature for the first time. More...

Some of the oldest objects in the Universe may still have a long way to go, according to a new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. These new results indicate that globular clusters might be surprisingly less mature in their development than previously thought. More...

A new online map lets visitors explore Mars’ past through a collection of high-resolution observations from one of the most powerful spectrometers ever sent to the Red Planet. More...

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) successfully captured a movie of the "Full Earth-Rise" using the onboard High Definition Television (HDTV) of the lunar explorer "KAGUYA " (SELENE) on April 6, 2008. More...

Using NASA, Japanese, and European X-ray satellites, a team of Japanese astronomers has discovered that our galaxy’s central black hole let loose a powerful flare three centuries ago. More...

The leading method of finding planets orbiting distant stars spots mostly Jupiter-sized worlds. Technology limitations make it difficult to detect smaller planets. But that is about to change. More...

NASA is preparing to send a small spacecraft to the moon in 2011 to assess the lunar atmosphere and the nature of dust lofted above the surface. More...

A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars' two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars. More...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft tasted and sampled a surprising organic brew erupting in geyser-like fashion from Saturn's moon Enceladus during a close flyby on March 12. Scientists are amazed that this tiny moon is so active, "hot" and brimming with water vapor and organic chemicals. More...

A powerful stellar explosion detected March 19 by NASA's Swift satellite has shattered the record for the most distant object that could be seen with the naked eye. More...

Using visible and infrared data collected from telescopes on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, a team of scientists, led by the University of Maryland's Jessica Sunshine, have identified three asteroids that appear to be among our Solar System's oldest objects. More...

What are the signs of spring? They are as familiar as a blooming Daffodil, a songbird at dawn, a surprising shaft of warmth from the afternoon sun. And, oh yes, don't forget the aurora borealis. More...

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has found evidence of salt deposits. These deposits point to places where water once was abundant and where evidence might exist of possible Martian life from the Red Planet's past. More...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon Titan. More...

A team of astronomers led by Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has made the first detection ever of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting another star. More...

Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who co-wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey" and won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday, an aide said. He was 90. More...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft performed a daring flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12, flying about 15 kilometers per second (32,000 mph) through icy water geyser-like jets. The spacecraft snatched up precious samples that might point to a water ocean or organics inside the little moon. More...

Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered large amounts of simple organic gases and water vapor in a possible planet-forming region around an infant star, along with evidence that these molecules were created there. They've also found water in the same zone around two other young stars. More...

Brown University professor Peter Schultz’s study of the Peruvian meteorite has yielded some interesting conclusions that could upend the conventional wisdom about the size and type of meteorites that can strike Earth. More...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found evidence of material orbiting Rhea, Saturn's second largest moon. This is the first time rings may have been found around a moon. More...

A rocky planet similar to Earth may be orbiting one of our nearest stellar neighbors and could be detected using existing techniques, according to a new study led by astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. More...

Scientists on the HiRISE team have discovered never-before-seen impact “megabreccia” and a possibly once-habitable ancient lake on Mars at a place called Holden crater. More...

The University of Arizona-led High Resolution Imaging Experiment camera has taken the first-ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole. More...

Three Mars spacecraft are adjusting their orbits to be over the right place at the right time to listen to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander as it enters the Martian atmosphere on May 25. More...

NASA has obtained the highest resolution terrain mapping to date of the moon's rugged south polar region, with a resolution to 20 meters (66 feet) per pixel. More...

Diamonds may be rare on Earth, but surprisingly common in space -- and the super-sensitive infrared eyes of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are perfect for scouting them, say scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. More...

The space around Earth is a busy place, as teeming with traffic as a roundabout. More than 500 active satellites are bustling about up there right now. More...

Astronomers have discovered that terrestrial planets might form around many, if not most, of the nearby sun-like stars in our galaxy. These new results suggest that worlds with potential for life might be more common than we thought. More...

A team of Japanese astronomers resolved a circumstellar disk around the young lightweight star FN Tau. The diminutive star is located in a star-forming region toward the Constellation Taurus at a distance 460 light years from Earth. More...

Like salt used as a preservative, high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the wet, early-Mars environment known from discoveries by NASA's Opportunity rover may have thwarted any microbes from developing or surviving. More...

An international team of astronomers has discovered two planets that resemble smaller versions of Jupiter and Saturn in a solar system nearly 5,000 light years away. More...

The towering 3-D features of Martian canyons and highlands are about to stand out like never before, thanks to data from a high-resolution camera on the Mars Express orbiter. More...

A movement to immortalize famed Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan with a U.S. postage stamp was launched Feb. 11 for local media at the Ithaca Sciencenter. More...

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, scientists have reported the possible detection of a binary star system that was later destroyed in a supernova explosion. The new method they used provides great future promise for finding the detailed origin of these important cosmic events. More...

The first triple asteroid near Earth has been discovered. Astronomers have found plenty of double, or binary asteroids. Triples are known to exist, too (the first triple was found in 2005). But the system called 2001 SN263 is the closest triple, at just 7 million miles  (11.2 million kilometers) from Earth. More...