NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has used its full array of instruments to analyze Martian soil for the first time, and found a complex chemistry within the Martian soil. Water and sulfur and chlorine-containing substances, among other ingredients, showed up in samples Curiosity's arm delivered to an analytical laboratory inside the rover.
Detection of the substances during this early phase of the mission demonstrates the laboratory's cap... whole story

The picture on the left shows a calm sun from Oct. 2010. The right side, from Oct. 2012, shows a much more active and varied solar atmosphere as the sun moves closer to peak solar activity, a peak known as solar maximum, predicted for 2013. Both images were captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observing light emitted from the 1 million degree plasma, which is a good temperature for observing the quiet corona.
The sun g... whole story

ESA's Space Situational Awareness programme is taking centre stage during the ninth European Space Weather Week, with experts showcasing a recently opened space weather service centre and highlighting European space weather research and development.
European Space Weather Week, 5-9 November 2012, is the largest annual European space-weather conference and brings together scientists, engineers, industry and policy-makers in Brussels, ... whole story

NGC 3344 is a glorious spiral galaxy around half the size of the Milky Way, which lies 25 million light-years distant. We are fortunate enough to see NGC 3344 face-on, allowing us to study its structure in detail.
The galaxy features an outer ring swirling around an inner ring with a subtle bar structure in the center. A bar is an elongated distribution of stars and gas in the center of a spiral galaxy. The central regions of the gal... whole story

An X-ray outburst caught by NASA's Swift on Sept. 16, 2012, resulted from a flood of gas plunging toward a previously unknown black hole. Gas flowing from a sun-like star collects into a disk around the black hole. Normally, this gas would steadily spiral inward. But in this system, named Swift J1745-26, the gas collects for decades before suddenly surging inward.
NASA's Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy ... whole story