The U.S. government shutdown has broken the links to many federal websites, but a vital source of information about sun storms and their potential effects on Earth remains available. The website of the Space Weather Prediction Center, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will continue to be maintained despite the shutdown, which began at midnight Tuesday (Oct. 1) when the Senate and House failed to agree on an emergency spending bill. The space weather center is...

This artist's conception shows the NASA's MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars. The mission will launch in late 2013. (LASP) NASA's next Mars probe should get off the ground on time, no matter how long the government shutdown lasts. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, or Maven, got back on track for a Nov. 18 launch on Thursday (Oct. 3), just two days after the froze liftoff preparations and put a scare into planetary scientists around the world. "We have already...

The moon will meet up with three different planets in the evening sky during two upcoming celestial encounters, one on Sunday (Oct. 6) and the other on Tuesday (Oct. 8). The ringed planet , sinking into the west-southwest twilight, is close to Mercury in early October. About 40 minutes after sunset on Sunday, try catching a glimpse of Saturn hovering about 5 degrees above a razor-thin sliver of a crescent moon that's just two days past new phase and a...

The massive planet was found usiing the gravitational microlensing technique at the Mount John Observatory in New Zealand. (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) Deep inside the Milky Way’s galactic bulge, a world is orbiting a star — a world that is one-third the size of our own sun and 25,000 light-years away from us. Astronomers working in three locations — New Zealand, Poland and Israel — all sighted it using using a quirk of Einstein’s general relativity theory to detect it:...

Naiad is the encircled point of light just to the left of Neptune. (SETI Institute) A tiny, mysterious moon orbiting Neptune has been spotted for the first time in more than 20 years. By analyzing photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., have caught sight of Naiad, the innermost of . The 62-mile-wide (100 kilometers) moon has remained unseen since the cameras on NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft discovered it in 1989....

Comet ISON barreled past Mars last week on its way toward a close encounter with the sun that has had scientists and skywatchers buzzing for a year. on Oct. 1, then geared up for a close solar approach that will bring the icy wanderer within 724,000 miles (1.16 million kilometers) of the sun's surface on Nov. 28. If ISON manages to stay in one piece, it could put on a memorable sky show around that time, experts say. Here's the...

This image shows an Atlas V rocket launching with the Juno spacecraft payload from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images) LOS ANGELES -- Scientists say NASA's Jupiter-bound spacecraft that looped around Earth to catapult to the outer solar system, is operating normally again. The Southwest Research Institute, which leads the mission's science operations, said Friday that Juno is out of "safe mode." That's...

Iran has announced plans to send a into space by the end of November as part of its strategy to eventually have a manned spaceflight program, according to an Iranian web site called Press TV. The move was announced on Saturday by Hamid Fazeli, deputy head of the Iran Space Agency. Fazeli also said the Islamic Republic is considering into space other “animals with a similar weight as monkeys,” the Associated Press reports. The country claims to have successfully launched...

The leaves are turning, there's a nip in the air and shower spawned by Halley's Comet is at its peak overnight tonight (Oct. 20). If the bright moon or bad weather doesn't spoil the view, stargazers can catch a glimpse of the annual Orionid meteor shower as it reaches its peak late Sunday and early Monday (Oct. 21). The Orionids, so-named because they appear to spring from a region to the north of the constellation Orion's second brightest star, Betelgeuse,...

With nature’s insanity and humanity’s ingenuity, our solar system is chock full of strange and beautiful things. Well, actually, it’s chock full of , but if you could zoom around and sight-see, you’d come across some wondrous objects, both natural and manmade. Click through to see a collection of our favorites. FIRST: Mariner Valley/Valles Marineris This mosaic shows the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) If you ripped open the United States latitudinally, you’d be close to having a scar...

WASHINGTON -- The latest space tourism venture depends more on hot air than rocket science. World View Enterprises announced plans Tuesday to send people up in a capsule, lifted 19 miles by a high-altitude balloon. Jane Poynter, CEO of the Tucson, Ariz.-based company, said the price for the four-hour ride would be $75,000. While it's not quite space - that starts at 62 miles - the plan requires approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial space. Poynter said...

NEW YORK — Members of the United Nations met with distinguished astronauts and cosmonauts this week in New York to begin implementing the first-ever international contingency plan for defending Earth against catastrophic asteroid strikes. Six of the space travelers involved in these U.N. discussions discussed the asteroid defense effort Friday (Oct. 25) in a news conference hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at the American Museum of Natural History. Their goal: to drive home the very-real threats posed by near-Earth...