60-Second Space

On August 24th, 1989, the Voyager 2 spacecraft rendezvoused with Neptune, making it the farthest planet to pose for a close-up, a record it still holds today.

If intelligent aliens are dumb enough to pollute their atmosphere, NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope is powerful enough to spot some of the signs on some exoplanets. Clara Moskowitz reports

Within a Mars-like laboratory environment, perchlorate salts known to exist on Mars were able to lower the freezing point enough to get ice to turn to liquid water. Clara Moskowitz reports

The Cassini probe readies for its final act with new flight patterns that will get unprecedented views of Saturn and culminate in a final dive into the planet's atmosphere. Clara Moskowitz reports

A galaxy four billion light-years from us was has three supermassive black holes at its center, with two in a tight formation. Clara Moskowitz reports

The European Southern Observatory broke ground June 19th to build the world's largest telescope atop the Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile. Clara Moskowitz reports

The current solar maximum appears to be weak. But the few previously measured maxes could have been unusually strong. Clara Moskowitz reports

A failed dwarf galaxy called the Smith Cloud apparently survived an ancient collision with the Milky Way because of a protective dark matter cloak. Clara Moskowitz reports

Pluto has at least five moons and an atmosphere—and now a new analysis places its diameter as bigger than its outer solar system rival, Eris

Jupiter's Great Red Spot, once estimated to be 41,000 kilometers across, is just 16,500 kilometers wide in the latest Hubble Space Telescope observations, and the shrinkage seems to be accelerating. Clara Moskowitz reports

When a white dwarf passes in front of its binary star system companion every 88 days, it acts like a lens to make the larger star appear brighter to us.

The star cluster HVGC-1 had been part of the M87 galaxy, but now it's fleeing that galaxy at more than two million miles per hour. Clara Moskowitz reports

A brown dwarf only about three to 10 times Jupiter's mass couldn't get fusion going and now sits freezing in space, in the nearby galactic neighborhood. Clara Moskowitz reports

Citizen scientists have helped professional astronomers locate more than 500 million lunar craters by using an app called MoonMappers. Karen Hopkin reports

More than 100 tiny satellites are set to launch into space on April 14th, in a demonstration of a possible future inexpensive technology that could pave the way for the $1,000 satellite. Clara Moskowitz reports

After prolonged periods in microgravity, astronauts' hearts became more spherical, according to scans done on the International Space Station. Sophie Bushwick reports

The asteroidlike object Chariklo orbits between Saturn and Uranus and has been found to have its own set of rings. Clara Moskowitz reports

An exhaustive search by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer has found no hints of a theorized planet or dwarf star in our neck of the cosmic woods. Clara Moskowitz reports

The half-the-speed-of-light spin of a giant black hole suggests it grew by digesting another black hole in a galaxy merger. Clara Moskowitz reports

Spanish astronomers spotted a meteoroid impact at 61,000 kilometers per hour using a telescope network that automatically scans the moon. Clara Moskowitz reports

The Hubble Telescope's new set of Frontier Fields images includes a galaxy some 13-billion light-years away, which makes it a candidate for the most distant object ever seen. Clara Moskowitz reports

Galileo—who, among many accomplishments, was first to use a telescope to discover moons around Jupiter—was born 450 years ago this week. Clara Moskowitz reports

Exoplanet Kepler 413 b's tilt can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to extremely erratic seasons. Clara Moskowitz reports

Astronomers have come up with a shopping list of what a planet needs to support life, perhaps even better than our Earth does, making them "superhabitable." Michael Moyer reports

On January 20th the European Space Agency woke its Rosetta probe after two-and-a-half years in hibernation, in preparation for its final approach to a comet

More than 3,000 astronomers assembled last week for the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Clara Moskowitz reports

Two recently found supernovae are much farther away and brighter than almost any star explosion ever seen, perhaps because they wound up as rapidly spinning magnetars. Clara Moskowitz reports

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite that went into hibernation in 2011 has been brought to life as an asteroid lookout. Clara Moskowitz reports

Ten-year-old Nathan Gray of Nova Scotia officially becomes the youngest person ever to identify a new supernova. Clara Moskowitz reports

Don't miss viewing Comet ISON, visible in the east before dawn, with a tail now as long as the bowl of the Big Dipper. Clara Moskowitz reports

India aims to become the fourth entity to send a mission to Mars with its launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission, aka Mangalyaan. Clara Moskowitz reports.

At a symposium on the danger of asteroid impacts, Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart said it's time for the planet to develop a strategy should a big rock come our way. Clara Moskowitz reports.

Two of the three known planets around the star Kepler 56 orbit their host out of line with the star's equator. Clara Moskowitz reports.

Voyager 1's own record of the plasma vibrations in its vicinity conclusively show that it has reached the space between the stars. John Matson reports

The distributed computing project Einstein@Home uses home computers to search through years of telescope data to find pulsars. John Matson reports.

NASA's WISE satellite surveyed the universe before being mothballed in 2011. Now it's being resurrected as a near-Earth asteroid scanner.

Although the Kepler space telescope's stabilization system is beyond repair, it has produced reams of data that have yet to be fully searched for exoplanets. John Matson reports.

The only issue related to the flip of the sun's magnetic field is that it corresponds with the peak of the sunspot cycle, when the sun is prone to launch flares and bursts of plasma into space that can effect satellites and power grids. John Matson reports.

Since it landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, the Curiosity rover has done photography, geology and roamed a good kilometer. John Matson reports

A huge cloud of plasma south of our galactic black hole could be evidence of a past feeding frenzy. John Matson reports

Theory said that muon neutrinos could transform into electron neutrinos. A neutrino detector confirms this by catching many more electron neutrinos than it should have otherwise. John Matson reports

The black hole in galaxy NGC 1277 is way more massive than usual. Astronomers hypothesize it was ejected from another galaxy before settling in its new home. John Matson reports

The star WX UMa went from 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to 30,000 degrees F in less than three minutes. Chris Crockett reports

A reaction between two common molecules occurs much faster at frosty interstellar temperatures than on our toasty Earth due to a cold-stabilized transition and quantum tunneling. John Matson reports

Three teenage Texas model rocketeers beat out teams from France and the U.K. to claim top honors at this year's International Rocketry Competition. John Matson reports

Looking at the Himiko Galaxy as it was just 800 million years after the big bang offers a glimpse at how the most massive galaxies took shape. John Matson reports

Segue 2, one of dozens of "companion" galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, is now the smallest galaxy known. Michael Moyer reports

A side benefit of NASA's Curiosity rover mission is that we now know about how much radiation an interplanetary traveler would face. John Matson reports

Isotopic analysis of water trapped in volcanic glass in lunar samples show that the moon has more water than thought, and the water there and on Earth had the same origins. Karen Hopkin reports

After nine (Earth) years of slowly traversing Mars, Opportunity broke the U.S. off-world rover record held by Apollo 17's lunar buggy since 1972. John Matson reports.

Silicon-rich rocky material was found around white dwarfs in the Hyades star cluster by the Hubble Space Telescope, despite the fact that almost no known planets exist in star clusters. John Matson reports

Based on the Milky Way's effect on the motion of a nearby dwarf galaxy, our galaxy seems to have more mass than we previously thought. John Matson reports

NASA's orbiting Kepler telescope recently spotted three exoplanets in or near their stars' so-called habitable zones, the temperate region where a planet could accommodate liquid water. John Matson reports

Using imagery taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2007, amateur astronomers located an object that could be a Russian lander that went dark after a few seconds on Mars in 1971. John Matson reports

Saturn's rings and moons contain a uniform distribution of water ice, which seems to reflect their common origins billions of years ago. John Matson reports

New data from the European Planck satellite indicate that the universe is 13.8 billion years old rather than a mere 13.7 billion years old. John Matson reports

An incomplete version of Chile's ALMA telescope array found that star formation was in full swing earlier than had been thought. John Matson reports

A study of the star HD 140283, only about 190 light-years away from us, finds that it formed in short order after the big bang. John Matson reports

The Van Allen Probes recently found a third belt of charged particles circling Earth, which was then destroyed by a solar shock wave. John Matson reports

Heat radiating from an asteroid imparts a tiny push to the rock, meaning that we could subtly steer an asteroid by changing its reflectance. John Matson reports

The Russian city of Chelyabinsk was awakened on February 15 when a meteor exploded overhead, with an energy equivalent to about 300 kilotons of TNT

Even as a few of its sensors cause problems, the Curiosity rover became the first robotic visitor to bore into the Martian surface. John Matson reports

The star TW Hydrae should be too old to still have planets forming around it, but its gas and dust indicate it still has planetary potential. John Matson reports

Tree-ring data from A.D. 774 show a sudden spike in radioactive carbon 14, pointing to a burst of charged particles or high-energy radiation that struck Earth. A relatively nearby gamma-ray burst could be the culprit. John Matson reports

After a few false alarms, the star SN 2009ip appears to have gone supernova at last. John Matson reports

Six volunteers spent 520 days in a simulation of a trip to Mars, and wound up experiencing sleep disturbances and becoming more sedentary. John Matson reports

Opening the door to the paying public means that less healthy individuals will soon have access to space--if their doctors approve. John Matson reports

The Cassini orbiter spotted a river system on Titan that NASA likens to a miniature version of the Nile River, but flowing with liquid ethane and methane. John Matson reports

NASA has plans for another Mars rover, but no trips scheduled for exotic places like Titan or Europa. John Matson reports

A proof-of-concept 3-D printing job using lunarlike material shows that quick-and-dirty tools or spare parts could be manufactured on the moon. John Matson reports

Global 3-D climate simulations for plausible Martian atmospheres show that even with a much thicker CO2 layer, the greenhouse effect could not have warmed Mars above freezing. John Matson reports.

Thanks to gravitational lensing by a cluster of galaxies, the light emitted by a small galaxy 13.3 billion years ago has reached Earth. John Matson reports

A planet at least seven times as massive as Earth orbits comfortably in the habitable zone of the star HD 40307. John Matson reports

Fomalhaut b looked like an exoplanet to some astronomers and like dust to others. But new analyses strengthen the planet view. John Matson reports

A chemical analysis of lunar samples now points to the solar wind being behind the ultrathin dusting of water molecules first detected in 2009 from spacecraft measurements. John Matson reports

An analysis of the Huygens probe's sensor data has reconstructed bouncing and skidding, moments before it came to rest on Titan. John Matson reports

A star orbiting the galactic center's black hole in just 11.5 Earth years should provide data for studying how gravity works near an extremely massive object. John Matson reports

Smaller ground-based telescopes produce research results that get more citations per dollar spent than the big guys. John Matson reports

UV light, which radiates from stars and galaxies, can induce rapid changes in icy hydrocarbon molecules cooled to 5 kelvins, as on a comet. John Matson reports

In the J0651 binary system two white dwarf stars orbit each other in less than 13 minutes--and it's getting a little faster all the time. John Matson reports

On September 5th NASA's Dawn spacecraft left the asteroid Vesta and set sail for the dwarf planet Ceres, where it will arrive in 2015. John Matson reports

NASA's infrared WISE spacecraft found about 130 glowing black holes in a small region of space, meaning that at least two million active black holes dot the sky. John Matson reports

Only about 0.5 percent of Milky Way-like galaxies have companions like our satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. John Matson reports

The twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes will fly through the Van Allen Belts for two years, measuring charged particles, plasma waves and magnetic fields. John Matson reports

More than 6,000 new images of Kennedy Space Center have recently been added to Google Street View. John Matson reports

After successfully completing its complex series of landing maneuvers, the Curiosity rover is on the Martian surface and ready to begin exploration. John Matson reports

Palomar Observatory's Project 1640 on the Hale Telescope allows astronomers to directly observe exoplanets, whereas the gamma-ray sensitive HESS 2 in Namibia tracks violent astrophysical events such as supernovae and flaring black holes. John Matson reports

The tiny slowing of the two Pioneer spacecraft, known as the Pioneer anomaly and considered by some to challenge general relativity, is probably due to the heat produced by electronics and radioactive decay. John Matson reports

The Curiosity rover is set to begin exploring Mars on August 6. But first it has to land. John Matson reports

Gravitational lensing shows that two galaxy clusters are connected by a filament of dark matter. John Matson reports

The B612 Foundation wants to put a telescope in orbit around the sun to look for asteroids that might hit Earth. John Matson reports

The sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, is much hotter than the surface. Giant magnetic tornadoes may be behind the heat transfer. John Matson reports

Dimitar Sasselov, director of Harvard's Origins of Life Initiative, explains how rocky exoplanets larger than Earth could have greater potential for life than Earth did. Steve Mirsky reports

Several nearby star clusters could harbor incredibly huge stars, with masses of up to 600 suns. John Matson reports

The first commercial visitor to the ISS splashed down successfully in the Pacific after a supply run. John Matson reports

The International Space Station received its first commercial visitor with the arrival of the SpaceX Dragon resupply capsule. John Matson reports

Residents of western states will be in position to see the ring of fire of an annular eclipse on May 20th. John Matson reports

A space-based telescope picked up faint thermal radiation from a "super-Earth" planet 40 light-years away. John Matson reports

Scientists are using a zeppelin to do a slow search for signs of fragments left by the April 22nd Sutter's Mill meteorite. John Matson reports