Researchers in South Australia celebrated New Year’s Eve with an astronomical find: a meteorite estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. The on Dec. 31, 2015, just hours before heavy rains that would have washed it away, according to a release from Curtin University. According to Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, some light rain fell around the lake on New Year's Eve, followed by heavier rains of 1 to 2 inches (25 to 50 mm) on New Year's Day and...

The photo above shows an image of galaxy SDSS J1126+2944 that was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The black hole that lost most of its stars is pointed out by the arrow. (University of Colorado Boulder ) A supermassive black hole may have lightened up some due to a galaxy-merged crash “diet” that has nothing to do with New Year’s resolutions. According to Space.com, the surprisingly light black hole is one of two found...

If you were to go outside on a clear night, equipped with only a moderately powerful backyard telescope, you could spot something that has perplexed physicists for centuries: a black hole. The black hole in question is nearly 8,000 light-years away, in the Cygnus constellation, and normally would be invisible, except this particular black hole has quite the appetite. It's swallowing nearby stars and emitting flashes of light in the process. But wait, aren't black holes all-consuming? How can any...

When NASA’s New Horizons Space Probe became the first spacecraft ever to reach Pluto on its July 14 flyby, it sent back some curious photos of the dwarf planet’s surface. Transmitted to Earth on Christmas Eve from New Horizon's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI for short, the probe’s images show of broken terrain known as Sputnik Planum, according to Tech Times. NASA scientists believe the ’snail' near the center of the image is a dirty block of water ice...

(NASA) NASA recently released this image of Saturn and asked social media users a seemingly trick question: Can you spot the three moons pictured? Two of them are pretty easy to see. The large satellite in the back, above Saturn's rings, is known as Enceladus. The larger moon seen below the rings is known as Rhea. The third moon, however, is much more difficult to spot. If you look closely you should be able to see a tiny speck just...

Have no fear— if a day ever comes when an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and Bruce Willis is nowhere to be found, we’ll be in good hands thanks to NASA's new office. The Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) will take the reigns of NASA’s current efforts to monitor near-Earth objects (NEO) and arrange with other nations and/or federal agencies if the time comes to prepare for impact. NASA defines near-Earth objects as " by the gravitational...

NASA's recently released images of the dwarf planet Ceres have the Internet doing a double take. Pockmarked with craters, Ceres' surface resembles the familiar landscape of our moon. The Dawn spacecraft captured the images , approximately 240 miles from the dwarf planet, NASA says. The images show in amazing detail the dwarf planet's craters, shedding light on how they formed and the secrets contained within them. Among the highlights was the incredible view of the 16-mile-wide Kupalo Crater, which NASA...

The photo above shows an artist's rendering of the recently discovered and extremely powerful super supernova ASASSN-15lh. (Beijing Planetarium/Jin Ma) Astronomers have bore witness to what is said to be the brightest star explosion ever, shining even brighter than the entire Milky Way. Thursday an international team revealed ASASSN-15lh, "," reports the Associated Press. The "super supernova" is considered to be especially rare and is more than twice as luminous as any supernova to date. The supernova was , with...

A flower has finally bloomed in space aboard the International Space Station, and as Matt Sampson explains, it could open the door to other possibilities. ...

The planets are about to align and put on a rare celestial show. Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter, the five bright planets, will all be visible from Earth as they appear in an angled line starting Wednesday, Jan. 20. The site will appear just before dawn in a line that stretches from high in the north to low in the east though Feb. 20. This marks the all the planets will be able to be seen with the nake...

Skywatchers are in for a real treat this weekend, when the "Wolf Moon" is expected to make its annual appearance. Starting Saturday evening at 8:46 p.m. EST, the moon , according to EarthSky. In the Northern Hemisphere, the moon will take a high path across the sky, allowing for plenty of time to view if weather conditions allow. "The January 2016 full moon counts the second full moon after the December solstice," wrote EarthSky. "In North America, we often (refer...

China has officially announced its plans to push the envelope on lunar exploration: landing a probe on the dark side of the moon. The Chang’e-4 probe will be sent to explore , the official Xinhua news agency reported. Chang'e 3, China's first Moon lander, imaged by the Yutu rover. (China National Space Administration) “The Chang’e-4’s lander and rover , and will carry out in-place and patrolling surveys,” Liu Jizhong, the country’s lunar exploration chief told the Guardian. Originally, the Chang’e-4...