News

16 December 2018

NASA thrilled InSight landed on flat, rock-free ‘sandbox’ on Mars

2 December 2018 Astronomy Now

Analysis of photographs showing the area around NASA’s InSight Mars lander shows no signs of any large rocks or depressions that might affect placement of the spacecraft’s science instruments.

Hubble spots thousands of globular clusters in Coma galaxy group

2 December 2018 Astronomy Now

Archived images collected by the Hubble Space Telescope across a variety of projects allowed astronomers to spot more than 22,000 globular clusters in the Coma galaxy cluster.

Type 1a supernova, caught in the act of exploding, raises new questions

30 November 2018 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have captured the light from a white dwarf exploding in a Type 1a supernova, shedding light on the mechanism powering the blasts while raising fresh questions.

Time-lapse shows Beta Pictoris b sailing through its orbit

27 November 2018 Astronomy Now

ESO’s Very Large Telescope has captured a remarkable series of images showing the hot, young exoplanet Beta Pictoris b moving in its orbit from one side of its star to the other.

NASA’s InSight mission lands on Mars to study planet’s hidden interior

26 November 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s InSight spacecraft plunged into the rarefied atmosphere of Mars at a speed of more than 12,000 mph Monday and braked to a gentle touchdown, setting the stage for a two-year surface mission to probe the planet’s deep interior.

Live coverage: InSight probe lands on Mars

26 November 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s robotic InSight spacecraft, carrying a pair of European-built science instruments, successfully landed Monday on a broad, flat equatorial Martian plain named Elysium Planitia. Touchdown was confirmed at 1954 GMT to begin a science mission focused on studying the deep interior of Mars.

Mars lander on course for Monday touchdown

25 November 2018 William Harwood

After a six-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s InSight Mars lander, streaking through space at at some 12,300 mph, will slam into the thin martian atmosphere Monday to begin a nail-biting six-and-a-half-minute descent to the surface, kicking off a billion-dollar mission to probe the red planet’s hidden interior.