Keep up to date with all things astronomy related with Astronomy Now magazine, which includes the UK's biggest and best night sky guide, an extensive news section, readers' astronomical images, book and equipment reviews, feature articles, a beginners' section and much more. For a sneak preview of this month's issue go to our magazine page.

Cosmic dance strips stars from dwarf galaxies

New computer simulations may provide an explanation for the origin of very small, faint galaxies, the so-called dwarf spheroidal galaxies.

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Unveiling the true face
of Betelgeuse

Using state of the art imaging techniques, astronomers have revealed a vast plume of gas and gigantic bubbles boiling on the surface of Orion's supergiant star Betelgeuse.

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NASA launches Asteroid Watch website

NASA have introduced a new website that will act as a central resource for information on near-Earth asteroids and comets.

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Repaired Hubble zooms in on Jupiter impact

Taking time-out from calibration tests, the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope turned to face the drama unfolding in Jupiter's atmosphere following its scrap with an impacting asteroid or comet.

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Galaxy Zoo hunters discover "Green Peas"

A rare group of galaxies dubbed the Green Peas have been uncovered by astronomers and volunteers using the online galaxy bank Galaxy Zoo, and could offer insight into how stars form in the early Universe.

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Craters, lava and tectonics scooped by Mars Express

ESA's Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera has scooped impact craters, ancient lava flows and evidence of tectonic activity all near Ma'adim Vallis, one of the largest canyons on Mars.

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Spitzer's coiled creature
of the night

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a twisted galactic monster with an eye-shaped object glaring from its core.

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Chandra observatory marks decade of X-ray astronomy

Astronomers celebrated the 10th birthday of the Chandra X-ray Observatory on Thursday, a decade after the shuttle Columbia sent the hefty telescope to a looping orbit high above Earth.

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Forty years later

Forty years ago humans left the cradle of the Earth and stepped foot onto another planetary world for the very first time. Between 1969 and 1972 twelve men explored Earth's Moon, their footprints revealed in spectacular new images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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Antifreeze on Saturn's
moon Enceladus

When NASA's Cassini spacecraft skimmed the surface of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus in 2008, it revealed the presence of ammonia for the first time, according to new results published in the 23 July issue of the journal Nature.

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Giant Thirty-Metre Telescope finds a home

The Thirty-Metre Telescope (TMT) Observatory Corporation, which is planning to build a state-of-the-art, 30-metre aperture telescope as part of the next generation of giant professional telescopes, has chosen Mauna Kea in Hawaii as the location for this enormous astronomical observatory.

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A new bright spot on Venus

An intense bright spot has appeared in the clouds of Venus. Could it be associated with volcanic activity on the surface?

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NASA images confirm
Jupiter impact

On the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and exactly fifteen years after fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter, NASA confirms amateur observations of a new spot on the gas giant as the likely result of an impact event.

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Jupiter's new impact scar?

Fifteen years since the impact of Comet Shoemaker Levy-9 with Jupiter and the giant planet is sporting a possible new impact scar.

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Celebrating Thomas Harriot

Four hundred years ago, English polymath Thomas Harriot became the first person to look at the Moon through a telescope.

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New life-related geology beckons Opportunity rover

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has found clay-bearing rocks lying directly in the path ahead for the Mars rover Opportunity, giving the rover the unexpected chance to sample a totally new rock type that could have provided a wet, warm, and non acidic habitat for the formation of early life on Mars.

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The great comet collision

Dubbed the most spectacular show of the century, 15 years ago today the first piece of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into the hydrogen-rich cloud tops of Jupiter, heralding a six-day long assault on the giant planet.

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Asteroid belt contaminated by distant comets

Dramatic upheaval in the early Solar System may have supplied the Asteroid Belt with distant cometary material, providing an alternative explanation for the diversity of objects residing there.

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HD Video: The shadows of Saturn's equinox

Astronomy Now's Keith Cooper speaks to Cassini Imaging Team member Professor Carl Murray about the treasure trove of discovery expected from the upcoming Saturn ring plane crossing.

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Turbulence responsible for black holes' balancing act

New simulations show that star formation in some galaxy clusters is prevented by turbulence created by jets of material leaping from the discs of the black holes at galaxy centres.

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Venus had a wet,
volcanic past

Covered in oceans, continents and flowing lava, Venus may have once been more like Earth's twin than its evil step-sister, say planetary scientists.

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Gamma ray "mystery" not related to dark matter

The distribution of certain gamma rays in the Milky Way, speculated by some to be evidence of dark matter, can instead be explained by the way antimatter positrons move through the Galaxy.

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Homeless black holes could 'play back' galaxy mergers

Rogue black holes may be wandering intergalactic space, ejected from galaxies after they have merged.

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Stephan's Quintet: A galaxy collision in action

This beautiful image gives a new look at Stephan's Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth.

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Herschel's first images promise bright future

ESA's Herschel Space Observatory has completed test observations with all of its instruments with spectacular results, promising a mission rich in discovery.

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How the first stars
came in pairs

New and detailed computer simulations that describe how the very first stars in the Universe formed show that binary star systems were common occurrences just a few hundred million years after the big bang.

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Distant, giant
supernovae detected

Adopting a new image processing technique astronomers have discovered some of the most distant supernovae, paving the way to reveal the very first stellar explosions.

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Martian sand dunes
fixed in place

Snow and ice trapped inside a number of Martian sand dunes is not enough to prevent their migration, say planetary scientists.

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New portrait of the
Omega Nebula

A new ESO image of the Omega Nebula provides a deep and unusually wide look into a giant star forming factory in the Milky Way.

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Fireworks display in the
Helix Nebula

A new image taken by the Subaru Telescope shows tens of thousands of previously unseen comet-shaped knots lighting up the Helix Nebula like a spectacular fireworks display frozen in time.

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First pictures from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the Moon on June 23. The spacecraft's cameras have returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium, or the Sea of Clouds.

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Is brown dwarf new type of extreme 'whopper'?

Have a team of astronomers found a new class of Jupiter-like planet with a gargantuan core of 100 Earth-masses?

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Radio quiet gamma-ray pulsars solve mystery

A new class of radio quiet pulsar detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope solves the mystery of previously unidentified gamma-ray sources.

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Gamma rays burst from M87's black hole

High energy gamma rays bursting from the galaxy M87 are found to be emanating from a region very close to the supermassive black hole at its heart.

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HD Video: Kepler and the Search for Exoplanets

Astronomy Now's Keith Cooper talks to various astronomers about the techniques used to find exoplanets, including a team of students at London's Mill Hill Observatory about their own observations of an exoplanet transit.

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APEX lifts veil on cold Universe

A new atlas of the inner depths of our Milky Way Galaxy reveals thousands of previously unseen knots of cold cosmic dust - the potential birthplaces of new stars.

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New black hole in class
of its own

A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered using ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope.

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Recent life-friendly conditions on Mars

Mars had significantly warmer weather in its recent past than previously thought, which could make for life-friendly conditions today.

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Millions of eyes raised
to the skies

At its half-way milestone, the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) is well on the road to success with over a million people looking through a telescope for the first time.

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