* Astronomy

Galactic or open star clusters are relatively young swarms of bright stars born together near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Separated by about a degree on the sky, two nice examples are M46 (upper left) 5,400 light-years in the distance and M47 (lower right) only...

Recent Goldstone delay-Doppler radar observations of the near-Earth asteroid 1992 UY4 have shown it to be a rounded object that is about 2 km in diameter. The asteroid with an ab...

The active Sunspot 792 is now pointing towards the Earth. The group to the east (794) and to the southeast (794) also pose a threat for X-class solar flares.

XEphem 3.7 released "XEphem, the brainchild of programmer Elwood Downey, is a star-charting, sky-simulating, ephemeris-generating celestial virtuoso that can do just about everything ... what's not to like?" The scientific-grade interactive astronomical epheme...

Typhoon Matsa is shown here on the morning of August 2, 2005. This image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite at 04:40 UTC (2:40 p.m. local time[img]http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archi...

A major flare on the Sun from the large active sunspot Region 792, (which is the return of the old Region 786), occurred at 0635 UT this morning, resulting in a minor radiation storm (S1). There is a slight possibility for moderate levels (S2) later on; however, there is only...

The active sunspot group 792 has emerged over the sun's eastern limb!

Aurora Alert, 14:01 UT 28 Jul 2005: High local activity, possible start of geomagnetic storm.

Abell 39 is a remarkably simple, spherical nebula about five light-years across. Well within our own Milky Way galaxy, the cosmic sphere is roughly 7,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Hercules[img]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0507/abell...

The powerful tropical storm Banyan is moving slowly north toward Japan on Monday, threatening to make landfall by the end of the week along a coast that was hit by a record number of deadly typhoons last year. As of 0600 GMT, tropical storm Banyan, named after a tree common in tropical region...

On Monday night, a bright streaking flash of light was reported in several middle Tennessee counties. Reports poured in to authorities about the strange occurrence at about 9:30 p.m. (local time). Officials with the National Weather Service said the flash was probably a meteorite, b...

Adapted from New scientist article EARTH'S natural radioactivity has been measured for the first time using the Kamioka Liquid Scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector (KamLAND). The measurement will help geologists find out to what extent nuclear decay is responsible for the immense q...

The Sun on 27th July 2005. Sunspot 791

Astrobiologists, who search for evidence of life on other planets, may find a proposed Neutron/Gamma ray Geologic Tomography (NUGGET) instrument to be one of the most useful tools in their toolbelt. Principal Investigator Sam Floyd holds the device that will be used this summer when...

The launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery from Pad 39B at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Expand