Asteroid Zips By Orion Nebula

This image shows the potentially hazardous near-Earth object 1998 KN3 as it zips past a cloud of dense gas and dust near the Orion nebula. NEOWISE, the asteroid-hunting portion of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mission, snapped infrared pictures of the asteroid, seen as the yellow-green dot at upper left. Because asteroids are warmed by the sun to roughly room temperature, they glow brightly at the infrared wavelengths used by WISE.

Astronomers use infrared light from asteroids to measure their sizes, and when combined with visible-light observations, they can also measure the reflectivity of their surfaces. The WISE infrared data reveal that this asteroid is about .7 mile (1.1 kilometers) in diameter and reflects only about 7 percent of the visible light that falls on its surface, which means it is relatively dark.

NASA's Spitzer Telescope Celebrates 10 Years in Space

Ten years after a Delta II rocket launched NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, lighting up the night sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., the fourth of the agency's four Great Observatories continues to illuminate the dark side of the cosmos with its infrared eyes.

Hints of Dark Matter Possibly Seen

These illustrations, taken from computer simulations, show a swarm of dark matter clumps around our Milky Way galaxy. Image released July 10, 2012.

CREDIT: J. Tumlinson (STScI)

Crater's Central Pit | Space Wallpaper

This cool space wallpaper shows a perspective view of a 50 km diameter crater in Thaumasia Planum. The image was made by combining data from the High-Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express with digital terrain models. The image was taken on Jan. 4, 2013 during orbit 11467, and shows a close up view of the central ‘pit’ of this crater, which likely formed by a subsurface explosion as the heat from the impact event rapidly vapourised water or ice lying below the surface.

Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Detecting and Tracking of asteroids

An infrared sensor that could improve NASA's future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test.

Jonckheere 900

The object in this image is Jonckheere 900 or J 900, a planetary nebula — glowing shells of ionized gas pushed out by a dying star. Discovered in the early 1900s by astronomer Robert Jonckheere, the dusty nebula is small but fairly bright, with a relatively evenly spread central region surrounded by soft wispy edges.

Hubble Catches Dusty Detail in Elliptical Galaxy NGC 2768

The soft glow in this image is NGC 2768, an elliptical galaxy located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). NGC 2768 appears here as a bright oval on the sky, surrounded by a wide, fuzzy cloud of material.

Auroramax

Canada's automated aurora camera tweeted this photo on March 17, 2013

Russian Cargo Craft Departs

An unpiloted Russian Progress cargo ship departed the International Space Station early Monday, clearing the way for the arrival of the next Russian space freighter. 

Spring Fling: Sun Emits a Mid-Level Flare

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of an M6.5 class flare at 3:16 EDT on April 11, 2013. This image shows a combination of light in wavelengths of 131 and 171 Angstroms. Credit: NASA/SDO.

Ice Cloud Heralds Fall at Titan's South Pole

The change of seasons on Titan is creating new cloud patterns at Titan's south pole. Here, a combination of red, green and blue images taken by the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows a vortex over the south pole in natural color. A more recent ice cloud, detectable only at infrared wavelengths, also has formed over this pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/GSFC

SEXTANT: Navigating by Cosmic Beacon

Imagine a technology that would allow space travelers to transmit gigabytes of data per second over interplanetary distances or to navigate to Mars and beyond using powerful beams of light emanating from rotating neutron stars. The concept isn't farfetched. In fact, Goddard astrophysicists Keith Gendreau and Zaven Arzoumanian plan to fly a multi-purpose instrument on the International Space Station to demonstrate the viability of two groundbreaking navigation and communication technologies

Saturn in the Sky

Credit: Andrew KwonAndrew Kwon took this image of Saturn on April 4, 2013 from his backyard observatory in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

It's International Dark Sky Week

Photographer Justin Ng (Facebook.com/justinngphoto) captured the cones of Mount Bromo, Mount Semeru and Mount Batok during sunset and into the night.CREDIT: Justin Ng (Facebook.com/justinngphoto)

It's International Dark Sky Week, an event designed to raise awareness about the negative, star-dulling effects of light pollution.

Kepler's Supernova

This composite of images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the remnant of Kepler's supernova in low (red), intermediate (green) and high-energy (blue) X-rays. The background is an optical star field taken from the Digitized Sky Survey. The distance to the object is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 13,000 to 23,000 light-years, but recent studies favor the maximum range. This image spans 12 arcminutes or about 80 light-years at the greatest distance.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/NCSU/M.Burkey et al.; optical: DSS

How Asteroid Mining Could Work (Infographic)

Source SPACE.com: 

Dust from Mars Drilling - Tailings and Discard Piles

This image shows the first holes into rock drilled by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, with drill tailings around the holes plus piles of powdered rock collected from the deeper hole and later discarded after other portions of the sample had been delivered to analytical instruments inside the rover. The image was taken by the telephoto-lens camera of the rover's Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument in early afternoon of the 229th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (March 29, 2013). The site is on a patch of flat rock called "John Klein" in the "Yellowknife Bay" area of Mars' Gale Crater. 

Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System,

Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, with hundreds of volcanoes, some erupting lava fountains up to 250 miles high. However, concentrations of volcanic activity are significantly displaced from where they are expected to be based on models that predict how the moon's interior is heated, according to NASA and European Space Agency researchers.

Hubble Sees Light and Dust in a Nearby Starburst Galaxy

Visible as a small, sparkling hook in the dark sky, this beautiful object is known as J082354.96+280621.6, or J082354.96 for short. It is a starburst galaxy, so named because of the incredibly (and unusually) high rate of star formation occurring within it.

NASA Celebrates Four Decades of Plucky Pioneer 11

Forty years ago, on April 5, 1973, a small, ambitious spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, heading towards the third-brightest point of light in the night sky. Following in the footsteps of its sister craft, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 was intended as a backup for the dangerous mission. Pioneer 11’s mission was only planned to last 21 months – just long enough to reach Jupiter – but in reality, the spacecraft continued functioning for decades after the end of its nominal mission.