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Fact and fiction of Martian dust storms
Andy Weir’s book The Martian - soon to be released as a movie - begins with a huge dust storm that strands a fictional astronaut on Mars. Could it happen?
September 21, 2015
Mercury rotates faster than expected
Analysis of data from the MESSENGER spacecraft reveals that, along with the sun, distant Jupiter may be influencing Mercury's orbit and spin.
September 19, 2015
Global ocean on Saturn moon Enceladus
Active water and ice geysers on Enceladus now are believed to spew from a planet-wide, liquid ocean beneath this moon's icy crust.
September 19, 2015
New Pluto images wow scientists
These latest Pluto images from New Horizons have scientists stunned, says NASA. It’s not just the breathtaking views, but the strangely familiar, arctic look.
September 18, 2015
Video: The solar system to scale
Beautiful short film depicting what happened when a group of friends built a scale model of the solar system on a dry lakebed in Nevada.
September 17, 2015
SOHO discovers its 3000th comet
Before its 1995 launch, no one knew what a spectacular comet finder the SOHO spacecraft would be. It excels at spotting sungrazers, comets sweeping near the sun.
September 17, 2015
No nearby advanced civilizations, astronomer says
Following the July announcement of a big new SETI initiative, a Netherlands astronomer says advanced civilizations are rare or absent from the local universe.
September 15, 2015
NASA’s SDO catches a double eclipse
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory sees dozens of Earth eclipses and several lunar transits each year. On September 13, 2015, it saw the two happening at once.
September 15, 2015
New model explains Io’s misplaced volcanos
Io's volcanic activity may be due to a unique combination of ordinary gravitational squeezing by Jupiter and friction on molten rock within Io's interior.
September 14, 2015
What is dark energy?
We need dark energy to explain why gravity seems to be driving galaxies in our universe apart instead of pulling them together.
September 11, 2015
