Our Final Frontier

If you look to the night sky, there is one object (besides the moon) that outshines the rest- our nearest neighbour planet, Venus. Today, Venus is a torrid, toxic planet, and very different to Earth. But the two planets share a similar size, mass and composition, and both are made out of the same materials- and we know think that Venus was once an Earth-like water world for billions of years. So why is Venus such a scorched wasteland today, while Earth has prevailed for billions of years?

The fate of Mercury could have been very different, had it not been for one gigantic clash.

Vulcan was a hypothetical planet located between Mercury and the Sun, which, although many recognized astronomers claimed it existed, was never seen by any telescope. What happened to this planet, and why was it never found? Let's find out!

At the beginning of 2020, the world held its collective breath as a nearby behemoth star, called Betelgeuse, start to dramatically fade. Could this mean the star is about to go supernova? With the recent flutter of news activity settling down, we are now finally starting to understand what might have really happened. Today, we take a deep dive into what makes massive stars like this tick, and then get into how we might have now finally come up with answers to this bizarre event.

Neutron stars are one of the most extreme and violent things in the universe. Giant atomic nuclei, only a few kilometers in diameter but as massive as stars. And they owe their existence to the death of something majestic.

The closest images of the Sun ever were taken by ESA's Solar Orbiter. It reveals new features on the Sun never seen before, including what appear to be small flares dubbed "campfires". It's possible these campfires on the Sun may be the long-sought after "micro flares" or "nanoflares" that are theorized to heat the Sun's corona to millions of degress.

In this video, we take a quick look around our solar system and understand some of its major components including terrestrial planets, the giant planets, their moons, ring systems, asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets.

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse will produce stunning views across North America. While anyone along the eclipse path with a clear sky will see the spectacular event, the best view might be 50,000 feet in the air, aboard NASA’s WB-57 jet planes. That’s where a trio of NASA-funded teams are sending their scientific instruments to take measurements of the eclipse.

Let’s hope those notorious ‘April Showers’ stay far away! April is going to be a great Night Sky April 2024 events to get out and go stargazing, planet-gazing, asteroid-viewing, and much more. From close encounters between various planets and our moon to a whole spate of solar system viewing opportunities, there are plenty of April night sky events to mark on your calendar. Don’t forget too that the Milky Way is rising for the northern hemisphere, so other nights are good too even if one of these events isn’t happening!

Over the years, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken hundreds of images of different kinds of incredible nebulae in our universe. A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space. There are different types of nebulae, ranging from sites where stars are being born under gravitational pressures to expanding gaseous remnants thrown off by dying stars.

Using data from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, astronomers have found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a star 218 light-years away are “water worlds,” where water makes up a large fraction of the entire planet.

The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, takes the spotlight in these new images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope that capture both sides of the planet. Big enough to swallow Earth, the classic Great Red Spot storm stands out prominently in Jupiter’s atmosphere. To its lower right, at a more southerly latitude, is a feature sometimes dubbed Red Spot Jr. This giant storm, called an anticyclone, was the result of other storms merging in 1998 and 2000, and it first appeared red in 2006.

A star’s death throes have so violently disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind, called a white dwarf, is siphoning off debris from both the system’s inner and outer reaches. This is the first time astronomers have observed a white dwarf star that is consuming both rocky-metallic and icy material, the ingredients of planets.

Astronomers, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have come up with what they say is some of their best evidence yet for the presence of a rare class of “intermediate-sized” black hole that may be lurking in the heart of the closest globular star cluster to Earth, located 6,000 light-years away.

Recent observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show that Neptune's clouds are almost completely disappearing!

The Hubble Telescope explores the depths of our solar system & beyond.

Explore the size and distance of our home galaxy. From the Earth to the Blackhole that resides in the center, the size of the Milky Way is extreme!

The continuously expanding solar wind begins in our Sun and doesn’t stop until after it reaches the edge of the heliosphere.

NASA is hunting for Near-Earth Objects, while also working on ways to defend Earth against them.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope unwraps a breathtaking view of Uranus, showcasing its rings, moons, and storms.

In a groundbreaking announcement, NASA has unveiled startling discoveries about Neptune, revealing its true identity and shattering previous perceptions.

Join us on a captivating journey into the outer reaches of our solar system as we delve into the exciting possibilities of colonizing Titan, Saturn's largest moon!

Since Edwin Hubble discovered that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the Universe astronomers try to find out how many of them are there. This Hubblecast focuses on the question “How many galaxies are there?” including the new numbers achieved in 2016.

Embark on an extraordinary journey beyond the confines of our solar system as we unveil the captivating realm of exoplanets!

The most detailed view of Pluto