Mercury's contraction much greater than thought

New global imaging and topographic data from MESSENGER show that the innermost planet has contracted far more than previous estimates indicated. The results are based on a global study of more than 5,..

Hubble Witnesses Mysterious Breakup of Asteroid

Hubble resolved the slow-moving debris of an asteroid that is in the process of breaking up. The asteroid, designated P/2013 R3, hasn't hit anything, as the fragments are moving too slow - it just see..

Distant asteroid revealed to be a complex mini geological world

A study suggests that the large Trojan asteroid (624) Hektor and its small moon are products of the collision of two icy asteroids...

Strange Saturn Vortex Swirls in Amazing NASA Photo

An amazing new photo of Saturn's north pole puts the planet's odd hexagon-shaped jet stream and dazzling rings on display...

Weird Black Hole's Incredible Brightness Perplexes Scientists

A black-hole system in a neighboring galaxy is twice as bright as astronomers had thought possible, a new study reports...

Astronomers discover most distant known galaxy

University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein has led a team that has discovered and measured the distance to the most distant galaxy ever found. The galaxy is seen as it was at a time j..

Comet ISON closes in on Thanksgiving flyby of the sun

Astronomers around the world are closely monitoring Comet ISON's plunge through the inner solar system and awaiting data from a fleet of space telescopes to find out whether the enigmatic chunk of ice..