This raw, unprocessed image of Rhea was taken on March 9, 2013 and received on Earth March 10, 2013. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute) NASA's Cassini spacecraft has snapped its last up-close photos of Saturn's icy moon Rhea, revealing a battered satellite covered in craters from violent impacts. Cassini took the amazing new photos of Rhea on March 9 during its fourth and final planned encounter with the Saturn moon. During the encounter, the probe flew within just 620 miles of Rhea,...

The glowing atmosphere of a strangely giant alien world could help solve mysteries of not just how it formed, but how our own solar system arose, scientists say. The exoplanet discovery comes from the most detailed look yet at the alien planets around the distant star HR 8799, which lies about 130 light-years from Earth. The HR 8799 system is home to four giant planets orbiting a relatively young, 30-million-year-old star, with each planet far larger than any world found...

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, fill the sky early Sunday, March 17, 2013, above the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox church in Kenai, Alaska. The bright display at times filled the sky. (AP Photo/M. Scott Moon) A massive eruption on the sun Friday at Earth that sparked a geomagnetic storm and boosted aurora displays over the weekend. The sun eruption sent a wave of solar particles streaking toward Earth at about 900 miles per second, according...

The comet that may put on a spectacular light show during a November date with the Sun, was observed by the Deep Impact mission. The spacecraft has also had close fly-bys of comet's Tempel 1 and Hartley 2 and scientific observations of Garradd. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD (Tony Farnham)) Astronomers are already getting set for the arrival of Comet ISON, which may become one of the brightest comets ever seen when it cruises through the inner solar system this fall. NASA has brought...

This mosaic of images from the Curiosity rover's Mast Camera shows Mount Sharp clearer than ever before. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has captured a stunningly detailed panorama of the giant Red Planet mountain that is the robot's ultimate science destination. Rover team members assembled the view of Mount Sharp, which rises more than 3 miles into the Martian sky, from dozens of telephoto images Curiosity took last year on Sept. 20. NASA unveiled the image on Friday. (MORE: )...

This image was taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It shows a region of the moon before and after the twin Grail spacecraft deliberately crashed into in December 2012. (NASA) LOS ANGELES -- When NASA's twin spacecraft Ebb and Flow crashed into the moon last year, scientists did not count on seeing the aftermath. (WATCH: ) On Tuesday, the space agency released before-and-after pictures of the lunar north pole where Ebb and Flow came to rest. Months after the back-to-back,...

The dark hot spot in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft is a window deep into Jupiter's atmosphere. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/GSFC) Though Jupiter is shrouded in swirling clouds, its atmosphere has some mysterious clear patches that scientists call "hot spots." Now researchers say they have found more evidence about where these hot flashes come from by stitching together images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft nearly 13 years ago. "This is the first time anybody has closely tracked the shape of multiple...

In this photo provided by NASA, a view of the lower reaches of Mount Sharp is shown in a cropped image taken with a 34-millimeter Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity rover on August 18, 2012 on Mars. (NASA via Getty Images) NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Mars since it landed to much fanfare last August, is back on active status Tuesday, after a memory glitch set the robot back. "We expect to get back to sample-analysis science by...

This image provided by Bezos Expeditions shows a thrust chamber of an Apollo F-1 engine on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in March 2013. (AP Photo/Bezos Expeditions) LOS ANGELES -- Rusted pieces of two Apollo-era rocket engines that helped boost astronauts to the moon have been fished out of the murky depths of the Atlantic, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and NASA said Wednesday. A privately funded expedition led by Bezos raised the main engine parts during three weeks at...

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT/GSFC) Last year, two NASA satellites, Ebb and Flow, mapped the moon's gravity field in unprecedented detail. Higher gravity levels are shown in red, lower fields in blue in the photo above. This week, the space agency released in mission-ending dives. NASA deliberately plunged them into a lunar mountain, well away from the and other historic sites. Scientists are still poring through the last chunk of data Ebb and Flow beamed back before their demise, but we think this is...

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured this image of the Earth at the spring equinox, on Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at 7:45 a.m. EDT. (NOAA) On Wednesday, the first day of spring, the length of day and night were about the same for most of the planet. The amount of solar energy delivered to the Northern and Southern Hemisphere was also equal. You can see that effect in an image taken Wednesday morning (March 20) at 7:45 a.m. EDT by the National...

Artist rendering of planetary discoveries by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. (NASA/W. Stenzel) Here's a collection of images from across the solar system and the universe beyond from the unique perspective of NASA, America's space agency. MORE ON WEATHER.COM: LATEST SPACE VIDEOS ON WEATHER.COM: ...