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Shuttle Movies
The most complete source of video from the countdown, launch and mission of space shuttle Discovery is available here! Spaceflight Now's STS-121 archive includes more than 200 movies you can watch online or download to your computer. Video Collection
News: September 2011
Myriad marvels on mysterious Mercury
Mercury’s surprising surface composition is challenging theories of how the intriguing innermost planet formed, thanks to observations in orbit by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, which also found evidence for copious ancient volcanism.
Giant dust shells around CW Leonis, an elderly giant star in the
constellation of Leo studied by the Herschel Space Telescope, are providing clues on how our own Sun will behave when it nears the end of its life, around five billion years from now.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found that exoplanet 55 Cancri e, which was first discovered in 2004, is less dense than previously reported; instead of a scorched, rocky world, water vapour and other gases likely steam from its molten surface.
Large NASA science satellite likely fell into Pacific
NASA's decommissioned 6.3-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, out of gas and out of control after two decades in space, plunged back into the atmosphere early Saturday, heating up, breaking apart and presumably showering chunks of debris along a 500-mile-long Pacific Ocean impact zone.
Detailed observations by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have cleared the asteroid family that has long been on trial for its suspected role in killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Black holes punching through stars may solve dark matter
If mysterious dark matter is made up of mini black holes formed in the first moments after the big bang, then it may be possible to test this theory and detect these black holes as they collide with stars, argue two postdoctoral researchers from the United States.
A team of scientists at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, have drawn attention to a couple of small mineral-rich depressions on Mars that, perhaps relatively recently in the red planet’s history, could have been places for life.
Collisions of the dwarf galaxy Sagittarius with the Milky Way gave our Galaxy its iconic spiral arms, say astronomers reporting results of new supercomputer simulations in the journal Nature.
Why some stars prefer to be single, while others are either paired up or in trios, could have been answered by a team of astronomers at the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio astronomy and the University of Bonn with the help of sophisticated computer models.
The cosmic production site of heavy chemical elements such as gold and lead may have finally been identified in the merger events of two neutron stars thanks to detailed numerical simulations.
New data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESO's Very Large Telescope find that a planet discovered in 2008 by CoRoT is being eroded away by an intense stream of X-rays from its host star.
A team led by astronomers from the University of Toronto have observed noticeable changes in brightness of a nearby brown dwarf, roughly 40 light years away, indicating the presence of a gigantic storm.
From the Earth to the Moon: GRAIL spacecraft blast off
Catching a break from the weather, a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket blasted off Saturday and successfully boosted two NASA science satellites into space on looping, round-about trajectories to the moon, the first step in an ambitious $496 million mission to map the cratered satellite's gravity and internal structure.
A record-breaking planet-finding instrument at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile has opened up a treasure chest of exoplanet discoveries, including a bounty of 16 ‘super-earths’ amidst a haul of over 50 new alien worlds.
Since 1995 astronomers have been discovering exoplanets that they cannot see by watching the way their gravity tugs on their parent stars, but now Kepler scientists are going one step better by discovering planets that tug on other planets.
Rover begins 'whole new mission' at Martian crater
Showing signs of wear after more than seven years driving across the plains of Mars, NASA's Opportunity rover is investigating a broad impact crater unlike any place ever visited on the Red Planet, effectively beginning a new mission for the celebrated robot.
Stars aren't shy about sending out birth announcements. They fire off energetic jets of glowing gas traveling at supersonic speeds in opposite directions through space. Although astronomers for decades have looked at still pictures of stellar jets, they now can watch movies of them, thanks to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
2010 Yearbook Our latest 132-page Astronomy Now special edition is an extravaganza of astronomy for the year ahead, with a complete 30-page guide to observing the planets, moon, meteor showers, two solar eclipses, and the deep sky in 2010. U.K. STORE E.U. STORE U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE
Take the tour! A 100-page special edition from the creators of Astronomy Now magazine, The Grand Tour of the Universe takes readers from one end of the Universe to the other and, in doing so, asks the question "just how big is the Universe?" U.K. STORE E.U. STORE U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE Infinity Rising This special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging. U.K. STORE E.U. STORE U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE Guide to the Constellations
Astronomy Now presents
this 100-page, full-colour guide to the 68 constellations visible from the British
Isles by Neil Bone, the respected amateur astronomer and writer. U.K. STORE E.U. STORE U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE Exploring Mars Astronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition! U.K. STORE E.U. STORE U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE
Our latest 132-page Astronomy Now special edition is an extravaganza of astronomy for the year ahead, with a complete 30-page guide to observing the planets, moon, meteor showers, two solar eclipses, and the deep sky in 2010.
A 100-page special edition from the creators of Astronomy Now magazine, The Grand Tour of the Universe takes readers from one end of the Universe to the other and, in doing so, asks the question "just how big is the Universe?"
This special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging.
Astronomy Now presents
this 100-page, full-colour guide to the 68 constellations visible from the British
Isles by Neil Bone, the respected amateur astronomer and writer.
Astronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition!