Nature's canvas at Saturn Nov 29:  In a splendid portrait created by light and gravity, Saturn's lonely moon Mimas is seen against the cool, blue-streaked backdrop of the planet's northern hemisphere. Delicate shadows cast by the rings arc gracefully across the planet, fading into darkness on Saturn's night side.    FULL STORY Precocious black holes challenge theories Nov 27:  NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has obtained definitive evidence that a distant quasar formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang contains a fully-grown supermassive black hole generating energy at the rate of twenty trillion Suns.    FULL STORY Battered and grooved: Saturn's moon Tethys Nov 27:  Having now passed closer to Tethys than the Voyager 2 spacecraft, Cassini has returned the best-ever natural colour view of this icy Saturnian moon.    FULL STORY Seismic shaking erased small craters on asteroid Nov 26:  University of Arizona scientists have discovered why Eros, the largest near-Earth asteroid, has so few small craters. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft mission orbited Eros for up-close research.    FULL STORY Hovering over Titan Nov 24:  A mosaic of nine processed images recently acquired during Cassini's first very close flyby of Saturn's moon Titan constitutes the most detailed full-disc view of the mysterious moon. The mosaic was released this week.    FULL STORY Breathtaking vista of Tethys Nov 23:  This dazzling view from Cassini looks beyond gigantic storms near Saturn's south pole to the small but clear disc of Tethys. Clouds and ribbons of gas swirl about in the planet's atmosphere in the foreground, while a tremendous chasm is visible on the icy moon.    FULL STORY Cassini image shows Saturn moon with a real shiner Nov 22:  Saturn's moon Rhea shows off the moon equivalent of a black eye — a bright, rayed crater near its eastern limb — in this picture from the Cassini mission released November 22nd. Rhea is about half the size of Earth's moon.    FULL STORY A closer look at black holes Nov 18:  An international team led by an Edinburgh astronomer have discovered that by studying polarized light from black holes they can focus much more closely on what exactly is going on around them.    FULL STORY Cassini sees Atlas, Pandora and Janus orbiting Saturn Nov 17:  Saturn hosts its own miniature solar system, with an entourage of more than 30 moons. This image shows Saturn's A and F rings, along with three of the moons that orbit close to them.    FULL STORY European probe arrives in orbit around the Moon Nov 16:  The European Space Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft is successfully making its first orbit of the Moon. Powered by an ion engine, this craft is demonstrating technologies for future planetary missions.    FULL STORY James Webb mirror building moves ahead Nov 15:  NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) moved a major step forward with the opening of a state-of-the-art facility in Alabama that will machine the observatory's optical components. Northrop Grumman Corporation is the prime contractor for JWST, leading the observatory's design and development team under contract to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.    FULL STORY Black hole found to precede galaxy bulge Nov 14:  Astronomers using the Very Large Array radio telescope to study the most distant known quasar have found a tantalizing clue that may answer a longstanding cosmic chicken-and-egg question: which came first, supermassive black holes or giant galaxies?    FULL STORY Martian moon Phobos in colour for close-up look Nov 12:  The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft has taken high-resolution pictures of the Martian moon Phobos. The pictures show new detail that will keep planetary scientists busy for years, working to unravel the mysteries of this moon.    FULL STORY Astronomers make a star Nov 12:  The Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain has been gathering light from the depths of the universe for 55 years. It finally sent some back early last week as a team of astronomers created an artificial star by propagating a 4-watt laser beam out from the Hale Telescope and up into the night sky.    FULL STORY Mysterious 'baby' planet Nov 11:  In June, researchers announced they had located a potential planet around another star so young that it defied theorists' explanations. Now a new team of planet-formation specialists are backing up the original conclusions, saying they've confirmed that the hole formed in the star's dusty disk could very well have been formed by a new planet.    FULL STORY Hubble tracks asteroid Nov 11:  While analyzing Hubble Space Telescope images of the Sagittarius dwarf irregular galaxy, an international team of astronomers were surprised to see the trail of a faint asteroid that had drifted across the field of view during the exposures. The trail is seen as a series of reddish arcs on the right in this Advanced Camera for Surveys image.    FULL STORY Spitzer discovery is good news for planet Pluto Nov 10:  Pluto's status as our solar system's ninth planet may be safe if a recently discovered Kuiper Belt Object is a typical "KBO" and not just an oddball. Astronomers have new evidence that KBOs are smaller than previously thought.    FULL STORY Keck reveals Uranus ring, atmospheric fireworks Nov 10:  As summer draws to a close in the southern hemisphere of Uranus, storm clouds are brewing in the upper atmosphere, northern hemisphere winds are gusting to 250 miles per hour, and the planet's rings are getting brighter every day.    FULL STORY Objects, density waves seen in Saturn's rings Nov 9:  A University of Colorado at Boulder-built instrument riding on the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft is being used to resolve objects in Saturn's rings smaller than a football field, making them twice as sharp as any previous ring observations.    FULL STORY Spitzer telescope looks into dark and dusty places Nov 9:  Two new results from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope released Tuesday, November 9th, are helping astronomers better understand how stars form out of thick clouds of gas and dust, and how the molecules in those clouds ultimately become planets.    FULL STORY Cassini observations show dynamic dance at Saturn Nov 8:  A University of Colorado at Boulder professor involved with the Cassini-Huygens mission is reporting an ever-changing vista at the frontiers of Saturn, featuring wayward moons, colliding meteoroids, rippling rings and flickering auroras.    FULL STORY Cassini radar sees flow-like feature across Titan Nov 8:  A strikingly bright, lobate feature has turned up in one of Cassini's first radar images of Saturn's moon Titan. It looks like something that "oozed across the surface," says a radar team member.    FULL STORY Origin of cosmic rays revealed with gamma rays Nov 7:  A team of U.K. astronomers working with international partners has produced the first ever image of an astronomical object using high energy gamma rays, helping to solve a 100-year-old mystery — an origin of cosmic rays.    FULL STORY Crunch, squelch or splash on Saturn's moon Titan? Nov 6:  The prospect of the Huygens probe landing on a hard, soft or liquid surface when it lands on Titan next January still remain following further analysis of data taken during the Cassini mother ship's closest encounter with Saturn's largest moon during its fly-by on October 26th.    FULL STORY Radar image shows Titan's surface live and in colour Nov 6:  Saturn's moon Titan shows a sharp contrast between its smooth and rough edges in a new false-colour radar image. Titan's surface lies beneath a thick coat of hazy clouds, but Cassini's radar instrument can peer through to show finer surface features.    FULL STORY Hubble spots rare triple shadow transit on Jupiter Nov 4:  At first glance, Jupiter looks like it has a mild case of the measles. Five spots — one coloured white, one blue, and three black — are scattered across the upper half of the planet. Closer inspection by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals that these spots are actually a rare alignment of three of Jupiter's largest moons — Io, Ganymede, and Callisto — across the planet's face.    FULL STORY Mt Stromlo opens to public as re-build begins Nov 1:  Ferocious bushfires decimated the historic Mount Stromlo observatory on the western outskirts of Canberra, Australia, on January 18th, 2003. Now a new chapter is being written in Australian scientific history with the establishment of new buildings at the site which was re-opened to the public on October 30th, 2004.    FULL STORY