Topic: Astronomy
Top galleries, list articles, quizzes
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Kepler epitaph? Eight most intriguing finds of troubled telescope.
Kepler, the space telescope designed to help us find other Earth-like planets, is on the fritz. Scientists hope they will be able to fix it remotely, but if they can't, its brief, brilliant career could be over. Here are eight of its most important discoveries.
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Mother's Day 2013: 10 best books
Mother's Day 2013: 10 best new books for all kinds of moms
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3 novels with unforgettable main characters
These protagonists will still be on your mind long after you've reached the last page.
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12 promising novels for spring 2013
Here are 12 spring 2013 fiction titles that we're looking forward to picking up.
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Briefing How dangerous are near-Earth asteroids? 5 key questions answered.
On Feb. 15, asteroid 2012 DA14, discovered a year ago, cleared Earth by a scant 17,200 miles. The same day, a smaller, unrelated asteroid that no one saw coming exploded 12 to 15 miles above Russia’s Chelyabinsk region. Events that day highlight the risk that near-Earth objects (NEOs) can pose – although to some extent, humans can counter them.
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NASA's Voyager 1 hits a 'magnetic highway' out of the solar system
Scientists at NASA say the unmanned Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the edges of the solar system. They estimate in a few months to a year Voyager 1 will become the first manmade object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space.
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Mars rover Curiosity soil analysis: why no news still isn't bad news
The Mars rover Curiosity has finished its first full soil analysis in Gail Crater, and its findings are consistent with those elsewhere on the planet. Researchers say the results form a 'baseline.'
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NASA surprised to spot ice on Mercury
NASA's Messenger probe enabled researchers to find unexpected materials frozen in Mercury's north pole. Scientists think the materials arrived via comets or asteroids that hit millions of years ago.
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SpaceX founder Musk eyes 'self-sustaining' Mars civilization
In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.
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Top Picks: 'Friends' on Blu-ray, Led Zeppelin live DVD, and more
Relive all of 'Friends' with the new Blu-ray set, learn about Thomas Jefferson in Jon Meacham's new biography 'Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,' and more top picks.
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NASA video captures massive solar eruption
NASA spacecraft captured HD video of a giant plasma eruption on the surface of the Sun Friday. This plasma eruption is not headed toward Earth, so isn't expected to cause any communication problems. The sun is currently in the middle of an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle.
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Leonid meteor shower late tonight: Stay up, bundle up, look up
The Leonid meteor shower peaks tonight in the first of what may be two viewing climaxes this year. The sky at 3 a.m. Eastern time will be moonless, as long as you can see it. Face east.
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Leonid meteor shower: When and where to watch
Leonid meteor shower: The meteor shower peak will come tonight (3 a.m. E.T. Saturday). The Leonid meteor shower is a product of the Earth passing through the tail of the Tempel-Tuttle comet.
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NASA: Astronauts could survive Mars radiation
Radiation on the surface of the Red Planet is roughly similar to that experienced by astronauts on the international space station, report NASA scientists. The findings help researchers understand the planet's capacity for supporting life and will assist NASA in preparations for future manned flights to the planet.
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Gigantic orphan planet: Homeless world hurtles through space without star (+video)
The free-floating object, called CFBDSIR2149, is likely a gas giant planet four to seven times more massive than Jupiter.
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Reader recommendation: The Lieutenant
Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.
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Where can today's total solar eclipse be seen?
Most of the world's population will be far from the eclipse's path. But anyone with access to the Internet can follow the action live.
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What sets newly found super Earth apart? It's simple as night and day. (+video)
Scientists say they have found a planet seven times more massive than Earth orbiting in a star's habitable zone 42 light-years away. It could have seas, and perhaps just as important, it could have an Earth-like climate because it has a day-night cycle.
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Newfound 'super-Earth' could be habitable for life
HD 40307g is one of three newly discovered worlds around the parent star, which was already known to host three planets. The finds thus boost the star's total planetary population to six.
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Modern Parenthood Orionid meteor shower: Wake the kids, make a memory
The Orionid meteor shower peaks tonight, so wake the kids for a teachable moment of wonder – whether you can answer their questions or not, they’ll remember these fragments of Halley’s comet when they see that comet come around again in 2061.
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‘Beetlejuice’ sparks? Meteor shower brings 'shooting stars' and 'earthgrazers'
The increasing intensity of the annual Orionid meteor shower will be on full display Saturday night and Sunday morning as most of the US faces a cold, clear, moonless night – the perfect celestial screen.
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Orionid meteor shower: Watch for fireballs during weekend peak
One of the more spectacular meteor showers of the year peaks overnight Saturday, with perhaps 60 visible meteors an hour. Fireballs – any meteor brighter than Venus – are likely as Orionids plunge into the atmosphere at 148,000 miles per hour.
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Mars rover begins munching dirt, finds weird bright stuff (+video)
The soil has been successfully delivered to the rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin, mission scientists announced Oct. 18.
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For Mars rover Curiosity, at last, it's dinnertime. On the menu: dirt.
It's period of painstaking preparations over, the Mars rover Curiosity has at long last ingested a sample of soil for analysis by its on-board chemistry lab. That's what it came 352 million miles for.
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Earth-size Alpha Centauri B planet detected by telltale star wobble
HARPS, as the instrument is called, successfully detected a rocky planet around one of Earth’s closest neighboring stars when other tools missed it.
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Earth-size planet found just next door, in Alpha Centauri system
The planet is not habitable, it is too close to Alpha Centauri B. But rocky planets tend to have siblings, researchers note, raising hopes others could be found in the system just 4.4 light-years distant.
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Humongous, 60-million-light-year-long strand of dark matter mapped in 3-D
Since dark matter cannot be seen directly, these filaments are difficult to observe.
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Earth-sized planet in Alpha Centauri an alien concept to many Earthlings
The alien planet’s existence suggests that others might lurk farther out from the star, just far enough for liquid water — and possibly life — to exist.
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Earth-sized planet too hot for non-asbestos life forms, but ...
Earth-sized planet: With a mass about 1.1 times that of Earth, it is strikingly similar in size. Could the Alpha Centauri B system hold more Earth-sized, but habitable planets?
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Newfound Earth-sized planet too distant to visit
The exploration of the planet known as Alpha Centauri Bb will require technology not currently in existence, say researchers. But if it has sibling planets in a 'habitable zone' scientists may be encouraged to develop the new technology required to such explore new and distant worlds.
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