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Editors of EarthSky

View from space: Four largest Texas cities

This striking astronaut photograph taken from the International Space Station (ISS) shows the four largest cities in Texas at night.

Zapping salt out of seawater

Chemists are hopeful their new energy-efficient method to desalinate water can be scaled up for personal or even municipal uses

Voyager spacecraft explores final frontier of our solar bubble

Data from Voyager 1, now more than 11 billion miles from the sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.

Exploring dinosaur growth

Using a combination of biomechanical analysis and bone histology, palaeontologists have shown how one of the best-known dinosaurs switched from four feet to two as it grew.

Gas-giant exoplanets cling close to their parent stars

Around many types of stars, distant gas-giant planets are rare and prefer to cling close to their parent stars. The impact on theories of planetary formation could be significant.

Clues to lifecycle of world’s iconic mountains

Interactions between landslides and erosion, caused by rivers, explains why some mountain ranges exceed their expected lifespan.

Astronomers spy on galaxies in the raw

A CSIRO radio telescope has detected the raw material for making the first stars in galaxies that formed when the Universe was just three billion years old.

21% of homes account for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions

Energy conservation in a small number of households could go a long way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, scientists are reporting.

Coincidence that sun and moon seem same size?

The sun and moon appear the same size in Earth's sky because the sun's diameter is about 400 times greater - but the sun is also about 400 times farther away.

Ten thousandth near-Earth object discovered

More than 10,000 asteroids and comets that can pass near Earth have now been discovered. The 10,000th near-Earth object, asteroid 2013 MZ5, was first detected on the night of June 18, 2013.