Venus: Earth's Cloudy Twin
23.09.1996

If Venus weren't so cloudy it would be more similar to Earth. This picture by the Galileo spacecraft shows just how cloudy Venus is. Venus is very similar to Earth in size and mass - and so is sometimes referred to as Earth's sister planet - but Venus has a quite different climate.

Atmospheres Detected on Two Extrasolar Planets
27.02.2007

Do extrasolar planets have water? In an attempt to find out, the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope made detailed observations of the atmospheres of two planets that orbit stars other than our Sun. Unfortunately, water vapor was not detected in either exoplanet.

Rosetta s Farewell
1.10.2016

After closely following comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 786 days as it rounded the Sun, the Rosetta spacecraft's controlled impact with the comet's surface was confirmed by the loss of signal from the spacecraft on September 30, 2016.

Dueling Bands in the Night
27.02.2018

What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is the one on the right and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits...

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
18.08.2001

Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These Martian moons may well...

Comet PanSTARRS and a Crescent Moon
20.07.2015

A comet has brightened quickly and unexpectedly. Discovered last year, Comet C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) is expected to be visible now for a few days to the unaided eye, just after sunset, from some locations. The comet rounded the Sun on July 6 and apparently has shed quite a bit of gas and dust.

Asteroids
13.03.1998

No asteroid or comet is known to be on a collision course with Earth. The asteroid designated 1997 XF11 had been predicted to come uncomfortably close, but new estimates place its passing beyond the orbit of the Moon. This earth-approaching asteroid was discovered by SpaceWatch astronomer Jim Scotti in December of last year.

The Far Infrared Sky
17.05.2000

Three major sources contribute to the far-infrared sky: our Solar System, our Galaxy, and our Universe. The above recently released image, in representative colors, is the highest resolution projection yet created of the entire far-infrared sky (60 - 240 microns) created from years of observations by the now-defunct robot spacecraft COBE.

Phobos: Doomed Moon of Mars
6.04.2003

This moon is doomed. Mars, the red planet named for the Roman god of war, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, whose names are derived from the Greek for Fear and Panic. These...

Geminid Meteors over Chile
8.12.2019

Are meteors streaming out from a point in the sky? Yes, in a way. When the Earth crosses a stream of Sun-orbiting meteors, these meteors appear to come from the direction of the stream -- with the directional point called the radiant.