The Orionid meteor shower is set to peak this week. The best views, if your weather cooperates, will come overnight Wednesday into Thursday. These are the 5 things you need to know about the Orionid meteor shower. (MORE:) 5. The meteors are actually debris from the Comet Halley Halley's Comet hasn’t paid Earth a visit since 1986, but pieces of the famous space rock still show up every fall. , according to Earth Sky. Pieces of the comet disintegrate in...

A chunk of space debris orbiting the earth will crash back onto our planet Nov. 13, according to astronomers. Named , the floating clutter was detected by the Catalina Sky Survey, a program focused on discovering asteroids and comets close to the earth,and is likely hollow, reports the European Space Agency (ESA). Astronomers have been frenzied over WT1190F’s arrival because it gives them a rare opportunity to , Gizmodo reports. It also provides a chance to test a coordinated network...

Skywatchers, look up: The night sky promises another spectacular show. The annual Hunter's Moon peaks Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 26 and 27, in the Northern Hemisphere. The full moon officially arrives at 12:05 UTC, or 8:05 a.m. EDT the morning of Oct. 27. That means that the moon you'll see Monday night will be just as full as Tuesday's orb, even though Tuesday's moon will have officially started waning, . (MORE: ) This year's Hunter's is , meaning it's near...

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren are scheduled to perform a six-and-a-half hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Wednesday, in an attempt to upgrade the station and perform required maintenance, the administration said. Kelly will take command of the spacewalk, as he is the more senior member of the space station; he will be the first to depart the ship , according to Time. Plans for the spacewalk have been in development for several months, the report...

For the first time ever, scientists have detected oxygen on a comet, a discovery that could challenge theories about the solar system’s formation. The international team of researchers published their findings in Wednesday, stating that an unexpectedly large amount of molecular oxygen was found in the cloud of gas, or coma, surrounding comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s nucleus. The discovery was made by the , an instrument aboard the Rosetta spacecraft, which has been tailing the comet since August 2014, reports the Los...

When the Cassini spacecraft made its pass by Saturn’s moon Enceladus, it recorded jets of water spraying from tiger stripe gashes on the moon’s icy surface, placing the colorless satellite at the top of the list of places to look for alien life.What the streams of water told astrobiologists was that there was an ocean underneath the planet’s uninviting surface, kept warm by tidal heating; the rotational energy that's dissipated as heat into the planet's interior. With that said, alien...

On Halloween night, a skull-shaped comet nicknamed “Great Pumpkin” treated scientists and sky-watchers alike as it made a close pass by the earth. The comet, 2015 TB145, streaked by around 1 p.m. EDT Saturday, reports Earth Sky. Scientists believe that it has likely shed its volatiles after passing by the sun numerous times, making it a “dead” comet - fitting for the spookiest day of the year. The image above shows asteroid 2015 TB145, a dead comet. (NAIC-Arecibo/NSF) According to...

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...