NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) captured this image on Oct. 27, showing active regions of the sun that are causing geomagnetic storms to effect Earth. (Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA) Tonight, space weather is going to hit Earth, causing an aurora borelis, or the northern lights, to possibly extend into the northern United States. Why? There's a “strong” geomagnetic storm at work, causing highly charged particles from the sun to interact with our planet's magnetic field. Near the North and...

Aurora over Alaska on Nov. 2, 2015. (Twitter/B_Ubiquitous) A “mild” solar storm hit Earth during the first week of November, causing an unexpected fall treat across parts of the northern continental U.S. and Alaska. For several nights in a row, sky watchers glimpsed an aurora borealis, or the northern lights. The geomagnetic light display stretched as far south as Iowa and Nebraska, and lit up the night in other areas, including northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan....

The meteor shower that sent a fireball flying across the skies of Thailand on Halloween is now reaching its peak. The Taurid meteor shower is expected to persist through the end of November, but , according to Space.com. If weather conditions cooperate during that span, viewers could see as many as a dozen meteors per hour, if you can find a sky dark enough. "The annual Taurid meteor shower is going on right now, and ," Bill Cooke, who runs...

"Did Mars once look more like Earth?" NASA asked Wednesday night. The short answer: maybe. Billions of years ago, Mars had a thick atmosphere and magnetic field not dissimilar to Earth's. But over time, perhaps 4.6 billion years ago, Mars lost its magnetic field and solar winds began to whip away the oxygen- and nitrogen-rich atmosphere. This process releases charged ions out into space, NASA said Thursday, as scientists working on the agency's MAVEN spacecraft mission. Today, Mars' atmosphere is...

NASA's Suomi NPP satellite captures South Carolina floodwater as it flows into the Atlantic Ocean bringing heavy loads of sediment, nutrients, and dissolved organic material. (NASA/Goddard/SuomiNPP/VIIRS via NASA's OceanColor) Nearly one month has passed since South Carolina was soaked by historic floods and seemingly endless downpours. By mid-October, the majority of that watery mess had drifted out of the state, leaving cities like Charleston and moving back toward the Atlantic Ocean. Packed with heavy loads of sediment, nutrients and dissolved...

Astrophysicists revealed a newfound world this week, and scientists say it has enough in common you could almost mistake it for Earth's twin. Named , which is pretty close onsidering the massive size of the universe. According to University of Maryland’s Drake Deming, its proximity and its eerie resemblance to Earth make it “arguably the most important planet ever found outside the solar system,” reports USA Today. A team pioneered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Zachory Berta-Thompson with the use...

All of the images in this gallery were released this week upon the groundbreaking of the Giant Magellan Telescope in the Chilean Andes. (GMT Organization) Scientists and supporters gathered Wednesday morning in Chile's Atacama Desert to celebrate the beginning of an important project in space exploration. The event marked the groundbreaking on the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will be located at the Las Campanas Obervatoryon a remote mountaintop in the Chilean Andes, according to a press release. When early operations...

An image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) combined with color data from the Ralph instrument created this global view of Pluto. (NASA) Is Pluto’s signature heart-shaped surface feature partly the result of a meteoric impact? After the dazzled stargazers earlier this year with its high resolution photography of the remote dwarf planet, astronomers have been intrigued by its newly revealed “heart,” fondly referred to by Pluto-philes as the Tombaugh Regio.Paul Schenk, a planetary geologist at the Lunar...

New Horizons scientists made this false-color image of Pluto using a technique called principal component analysis to highlight the many subtle color differences between Pluto's distinct regions. The image data were collected by the spacecraft’s Ralph/MVIC color camera on July 14 at 11:11 AM UTC, from a range of 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers). (Credits:NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI) Now that we’ve gotten to know Pluto better in recent history, we’re starting to see our distant friend in a new light, or color, if you...

The photo above show the Pleiades star cluster, also known as the "Seven Sisters." (Marco Lorenzi/NASA) Nicknamed the “Seven Sisters,” the Pleiades is a small, hazy cluster of stars that have the best visibility in the month of November. According to Smithsonian.com, the Pleiades cluster will before heading back towards the horizon. The cluster, which can be seen with both the unaided eye or an optical aid, is , according to EarthSky. During November nights, Pleiades shines from nightfall until...

This artist's illustration shows the planets forming around the star LkCa 15. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) A team of scientists has made space history: they're watching as several exoplanets are born. They've observed the birth of , the team said in its findings, which were recently published in the journal Nature. The new planets are some , according to Space.com. These observations could give scientists more insight , the Los Angeles Times said. "Such an understanding of the young planet population will shed...

The image above shows one of Saturn's moons, Titan, as winter sets in at its south pole. As its southern winter approaches, a cloud system called the south polar vortex (small, bright “button”) has been forming. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute) With the use of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists have detected a monstrous ice cloud in the low- to mid-stratosphere of one of Saturn’s moons, Titan. “When we looked at the infrared data, this ice cloud stood out like nothing we’ve ever...