US 708 is a rapidly rotating, compact helium star likely formed by interaction with a close companion.

Space Science Image of the Week: Hubble image unveils the twisted shockwaves of an exploded star

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has become the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet.

Managers of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover mission expect to approve resumption of rover arm movements as early as next week.

NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) today to discuss the historic arrival of the agency’s Dawn spacecraft at the dwarf planet Ceres.

Our week through the lens: 2-6 March 2015

Researchers believe that gaseous precipitaton is key to understanding how giant black holes affect the growth of galaxies.

About 4 billion years ago, Mars likely had an ocean that covered almost half of the planet’s northern hemisphere.

Dawn’s trajectory puts it on the side of Ceres that faces away from the Sun until mid-April.

A high-speed camera for monitoring vegetation from space and combating famine in Africa is being adapted to spot changes in human skin cells, invisible to the naked eye, to help diagnose skin diseases like cancer.

In May, the ‘webcam’ on board Mars Express will be available for public imaging requests. We’re inviting schools, science clubs and youth groups to submit proposals for one of eight opportunities to image another planet.

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is investigating unusual rocks before reformatting the rover’s memory and continued driving toward “Marathon Valley.”

Join us Friday, 6 March, at 10:00 CET for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a Sentinel-1A mosaic of Hungary

The multiple images of the exploding star are caused by the powerful gravity of a foreground elliptical galaxy embedded in a massive cluster of galaxies.

The discovery suggests that planets in quadruple systems might be less rare than once thought.

Astronomers have discovered the second known case of a planet in a quadruple star system.

NASA’s next mission to Mars, InSight, is on track to launch a year from today and to study the Red Planet’s interior to learn about how rocky planets like Earth evolved.

After studying the recent explosive break-up of a US satellite, ESA space debris experts have concluded this event does not increase the collision risk to nearby ESA missions in any meaningful way.

With a resolution of 4 inches (11 centimeters) per pixel, these data from OSIRIS’ Narrow Angle Camera reveal highly detailed structures on Comet 67P’s surface.

Technology image of the week: ESA’s Proba-V minisatellite captures an Australian salt lake covered with water

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is expected to remain stationary for several days for engineering analysis following an onboard fault-protection action on Feb. 27.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: mission control team trains for Sentinel-2A launch

Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when it enters orbit around Ceres on Friday, March 6.

Arcadia High School won out over 11 other teams at the Ocean Sciences Bowl regional competition held at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Feb. 28.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its historic orbit insertion at the dwarf planet Ceres, scheduled for Friday, March 6.

Join us Tuesday, 3 March at 14:00 CET as Wolfgang Pitz from Airbus Defence and Space discusses testing the Sentinel-2A satellite

This young and remote object provides tantalizing evidence for the rapid evolution of galaxies after the Big Bang.

Space Science Image of the Week: Instruments for JWST have been tested in a vacuum chamber to ensure they can withstand the intense cold of space

Our week through the lens: 23-27 February 2015

Data from NASA’s WISE mission have led to the discovery of two clusters of newborn stars thousands of light-years below the plane of our galaxy.

The scientists not only found giant molecular clouds thousands of light-years above and below the galactic disk, but also one of them unexpectedly contained two clusters of stars.

NGC2276-3c has traits similar to both stellar-mass and supermassive black holes.

Earth observation image of the week: a false-colour image of Belgium’s capital, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme

Like a cowboy at a rodeo, NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), has triumphantly raised its “arm” and unfurled a huge golden “lasso” (antenna).

Four new NASA Earth-observing missions are collecting data from space – with a fifth newly in orbit – after the busiest year of NASA Earth science launches in more than a decade.

A new study of Earth’s ionosphere, a part of the upper atmosphere, could have applications for better GPS communications.

Join us Friday, 27 February, at 10:00 CET for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a false-colour image of Brussels

This is most likely due to dense areas of dust and gas that shield molecules from otherwise lethal radiation.

This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but Dawn scientists will wait for better resolution to make geologic interpretations.

Think of it as the ultimate hitchhiking opportunity: ESA is offering CubeSats a ride to a pair of asteroids in deep space.

Dwarf planet Ceres continues to puzzle scientists as NASA’s Dawn spacecraft gets closer to being captured into orbit around the object.

Sample-collection drilling that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover completed Tuesday will likely be the last before the rover departs “Pahrump Hills.”

At a distance of 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, this quasar was formed only 900 million years after the Big Bang.

Scientists propose that the matter-antimatter asymmetry could be related to the Higgs boson particle.

Key science elements of the James Webb Space Telescope have been upgraded ahead of the observatory’s launch in 2018.

Technology image of the week: Through daily software uploads, this miniature satellite will be a testbed for innovative control methods

JPL will host a briefing Monday, March 2, about the March 6 arrival of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft at the dwarf planet Ceres. The event will be carried live on NASA TV and online.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used the camera on its robotic arm to record the pieces of a portrait that shows the rover within a panorama of the area it is studying.

Mission controllers at JPL today sent commands to unfurl the reflector antenna on NASA’s new Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory, launched Jan. 31.

Watch a replay of our ‘Out of this world’ Google hangout between ESA astronaut Tim Peake and pupils from Rode Heath Primary from Cheshire, UK

ESA’s IXV spaceplane, launched on a Vega rocket on 11 February, is now on its way to Europe for detailed study in Italy.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: Human endothelial cells and nuclei stained and exposed under a microscope in preparation for space

Before Sentinel-2A is packed up and shipped to French Guiana for its launch targeted on 12 June, media representatives and specialists got one last look at the second satellite for Europe’s Copernicus programme.

Emergency services rescued 1780 people in the Austrian Alps last year. They can now count on satellites to access maps, send messages, give warnings and stay in contact.

Research shows that under a crystalline crust should still be very cold and contain more porous amorphous ice.

Over the past 12 months NASA has added five missions to its orbiting Earth-observing fleet. NASA scientists will share early observations during a media telecon Feb. 26.

In Antarctica, the crew of the French–Italian Concordia research station are preparing for the winter. They have to survive six months of complete isolation – four in darkness because the Sun never rises above the horizon – while they perform science in one of the most barren places on Earth.

A university professor concludes that movement through dark matter may perturb the orbits of comets and lead to additional heating in Earth’s core, both of which could be connected with mass extinction events.

Space Science Image of the Week: Herschel and Spitzer team up to explore the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of our nearest extragalactic neighbours

Our week through the lens: 16-20 February 2015

The new images reveal the inner disk around Beta Pictoris and confirm structures predicted by computer simulations.