Sign Up for Our Amazing Newsletter!
A daily update by email. Science news, great photos, sky alerts.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Northern lights from the air
Photos of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, shot from an airplane over the icy Canadian landscape and approximate North Pole.
November 29, 2016
IAU approves 227 star names
The International Astronomical Union - which has given itself responsibility to name and define things in space - has now joined the rest of us in recognizing traditional star names.
November 28, 2016
How long to orbit Milky Way’s center?
One journey of our sun and planets around the center of our Milky Way galaxy is sometimes called a cosmic year. That's approximately 225-250 million Earth-years.
November 28, 2016
Can we see stars outside our Milky Way?
When we look up or down - away from the flat disk of the galaxy or toward it - we're seeing Milky Way stars. But we also see a few more distant objects, visible to the eye alone.
November 28, 2016
Night-shining clouds over Antarctica
The AIM spacecraft has spotted noctilucent clouds - aka night-shining clouds - above Earth's southernmost continent. The season for them started early this year!
November 27, 2016
Vast underground water ice on Mars
Water ice can't persist on Mars surface in the region of Utopia Planitia, about halfway from Mars' equator to its pole. But researchers say there's water in a vast frozen lake underground.
November 26, 2016
See it! Moon sweeps past Jupiter
In late November 2016, the waning moon took aim on Jupiter in the predawn sky. It swept closest to it on the morning of November 25. Photos from around the world!
November 25, 2016
Signs of climate change at Arctic tree line
Near the Arctic Circle, in northern Alaska, is where forests give way to tundra. Researchers are looking at how the warming climate might affect the ecology of this northern boundary.
November 25, 2016
Snowy night in Syracuse, New York
Syracuse’s first snowstorm of the season - this past Sunday and Monday - made this November the 4th snowiest since 1940.
November 25, 2016
Saturn spacecraft prepares to ring-graze
On November 30, the Cassini spacecraft will begin a series of 20 orbits that fly high above and below Saturn's poles, plunging just past the outer edge of the main rings.
November 24, 2016
