How the space shuttle killed an American Halley's Comet mission

NASA missed the chance to visit Halley's Comet in 1986 when the famed sentinel swung close to Earth, as it does every 76 years. Luckily for history, the Europeans flew Giotto past it on this day (March 13) in 1986, and some ...

The rings on the planet go 'round and 'round...

Recently I posted an image of two of Saturn's shepherd moons, Pandora and Prometheus, captured by Cassini in a face-off across the spindly F ring. Now here's a much wider-angle view of the gas giant's rings, seen by Cassini ...

NGC 3344: Hubble sees galaxy in a spin

(Phys.org)—NGC 3344 is a glorious spiral galaxy around half the size of the Milky Way, which lies 25 million light-years distant. We are fortunate enough to see NGC 3344 face-on, allowing us to study its structure in detail.

NASA in final preparations for Nov. 8 asteroid flyby

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on ...

Light from galaxy clusters confirms theory of relativity

All observations in astronomy are based on light emitted from stars and galaxies and, according to the general theory of relativity, the light will be affected by gravity. At the same time all interpretations in astronomy ...

Measuring galaxy black hole masses

(PhysOrg.com) -- Black holes, one of the most amazing and bizarre predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity, are irresistible sinks for matter and energy. They are so dense that not even light can escape from their gravitational ...

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