Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is smaller than ever before seen

Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot — a swirling anticyclonic storm feature larger than Earth — has shrunken to the smallest size ever measured.

Rosetta’s target comet is getting active

The target of ESA’s Rosetta mission has started to reveal its true personality as a comet, its dusty veil clearly developing over the last six weeks.

Astronomers find odd gas giant exoplanet traveling far from its star

The planet is about 2,000 times the Earth-sun distance from its star, a record among exoplanets. That means it takes about 80,000 Earth years for the planet to orbit its star.

Report: No radiation from Fukushima detected off US West Coast

No ocean-borne radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster has yet been detected in analysis of kelp samples along the western U.S. coastline.

Watch two neutron stars rip each other apart to form a black hole

This supercomputer simulation from NASA shows one of the most violent events in the universe: Two neutron stars ripping each other apart to form black hole.

New plastics heal themselves

Researchers have developed a regenerating plastic that grows back after damage.

Most detailed view yet of Milky Way’s magnetic fields

Researchers have created a new map of the Milky Way's magnetic fingerprint, the magnetic fields that shape our galaxy.

The best-observed X-flare in history

NASA says the March 29, 2014 X-flare was the best-observed in history. This post contains beautiful images of that intense event on the surface of the sun.

Mid-level solar flare erupts from sun on May 8

The May 8 solar flare is classified as an M5.2-class flare. M-flares are about one-tenth as strong as the most intense flares, called X-flares.

This is cool! Watch a realistic virtual universe unfold

If astronomers had used an average desktop computer to run the new Illustris simulation, the calculations would have taken more than 2,000 years to complete.