Image Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory Last night and tonight, I am on the Big Island of Hawaii using the Keck I telescope at the W. M Keck Observatory.  The twin Keck telescopes are two of the biggest telescopes in the world, and h...

I’ve been posting sporadically on how sunspots are starting to come back to the Sun, and I’m glad to see a new group sprouted up recently… and it’s a monster: These images are from SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The ...

Space is the final frontier. We haven't lived up to the promise of the 1950s and 60s, the heyday of the space race but we still carry with us dreams of the stars. Mike Honig, an avowed space exploration enthusiast, gives his take on...

My first Mars image of this opposition taken with Don the 8" reflector, my ToUCam and Vega. Roughly 40 images stacked with Registax.Memo to self, when stars higher in the sky than Mars are twinkling, don't even bother. Couldn't eve...

Submitted by Matt Shields / UGC The shuttle Endeavour's launch at 4:14 a.m. ET Monday creates a false dawn in this photo, taken by Matt Shields at the Kennedy Space Center's visitor complex. The night launch of a space shut...

'Nova' on PBS: 'Extreme Cave Diving' Science News: Studying how things fall apart National Geographic: A Traveler's Guide to the Planets Universe Today: Will NASA send a Robonaut to the moon? Popular Mechanics: Why the new NASA ...

Having discovered its first asteroid on January 12, Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has now officially discovered its first comet, P/2010 B2 (WISE). The comet was first observed by WISE on January 22, and has since been ...

The minimum threshold level for amazement will rise quickly once Kepler’s discoveries start to accumulate, and already, it’s getting very hard to remember which transiting planet is unusual for which reason. Let’s see, was it TrES-4...

Although I am not suffering under the "snowpocalypse" on the East Coast, I woke up to Monday absolutely buried under a massive pile of things to do for both home and work, and it looks like it's going to take me a few days to dig ou...

I was pleasantly surprised to see my old friend Kevin Grazier — planetary scientist with Cassini, and science advisor for Battlestar Galactica and Eureka — highlighted in a Eureka Unscripted blog post. It’s a two-parter, with the se...

Space scientists have found clues that a fresh place in the solar system may be home to life. They analysed ice volcanoes on a moon of Saturn called Enceladus and discovered powerful new evidence for liquid water beneath its surface...

The New Moon is Sunday February 14. Jupiter disappears in the western twilight. Mars is now the brightest object in the late evening sky. Asteroid Vesta at its brightest. In the morning, Saturn is easily seen above the northern ...

I was recently interviewed on EarthSky about Obama’s budget and future plans for NASA. I talked about some of the things I covered in my earlier blog post, but I also added some thoughts about where I see NASA going and what I see i...

It's nearly spring, the traditional time for DIY, and the thoughts of many are turning to a nice little extension. read more...

The Science Communicators meeting notice is below the Vesta article, scroll down or click this link....

Of course I have like 20 minutes before I have to leave to catch a plane (yes, at 3:30 frakking in the a.m.) but I had to let y’all know about this: a video with a lot of famous and not-so-famous geeks singing the "Boom-de-yadda" so...

Right: Sketch of Vesta near gamma Leonis on the 6th and 7th of February (Vesta indicated by a "v"), Left; Skymap Pro chart of same area.While Mars is hogging the limelight at the moment, asteroid Vesta is heading for opposition lat...

The historic snowstorm that hit the Washington DC area over the weekend with over two feet of snow in many locations (I measured 24″ as of mid-afternoon Saturday and just got my power back at home after being without it for over a d...

There is a new show on the feed! It’s the extended version of our February contribution to The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. Our very own slacker Mike Simonsen interviews Kevin Krisciunas about his recent paper that describes how t...

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, due for launch on February 9 at 10:30 Eastern time (15:30 GMT), is a revolution in solar observing: equipped with state-of-the art detectors, it’ll stare at the Sun and teach us far more about our clo...