Lucky residents of the Western US will be looking to see the sky this Sunday, May 20 when an annular solar eclipse passes from northwestern Texas through New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, southern Utah, Nevada, northern California, and southwestern Oregon. Living on the other side of the country doesn't mean you have to miss out on the celestial wonder; NASA, naturally, has got you covered. The Read more

An annual star event, called the Lyrids meteor shower will be lighting up the sky late tonight and early Sunday morning. The light show kicks off in the Northeastern sky at midnight local time, but even if your sky is overcast, NASA will have you covered — it will be broadcasting the sky from a network of Earth-bound cameras, will have a camera aboard a student-launched weather balloon, and the Read more

A team of astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered a new earth-sized planet just 40 light-years from earth that is completely covered in water. Though I immediately imagine a web-toed Kevin Costner wandering around looking for dirt to trade, Zachory Berta, who was part of the team that made the discovery, says that the planet isn't just covered by an ocean, but Read more

Now that years have passed, and we can remove Pluto from our solar system's family of planets without argument, it's time to focus on the eight planetary masses orbiting the Sun. Impress your friends, pub trivia foes, and Neil deGrasse Tyson by learning these galactic facts on Earth's neighbors. Saturn's moon, Titan, has its own atmosphere, but you wouldn't want to live there, as it's poisonous Read more

While there are still months until the Mars Curiosity rover lands on the Red Planet, get your Martian fix with the free Mars Images app for iOS and Android devices. The app lets you browse the latest images from the Opportunity rover, on the planet since 2004. Take a cue from David Bowie and dream of life on Mars with daily refreshes on the rover's planetary explorations. Read more

If the new year's fireworks weren't enough for you this weekend, fear not — a big meteor shower, called the Quadrantids, will be producing up to 100 falling stars an hour tomorrow morning, essentially creating a natural fireworks show the entire country can see. The light show kicks off in the Northern hemisphere on Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. local time, with meteors coming from the North sky Read more

Countless satellites hover over earth transmitting phone calls, powering GPS systems, and in the case of a new NASA satellite, measuring the planet's wide-ranging climate. The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite, which launched in Oct. 2011, is on a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning it passes over the equator at the same local ground time in every orbit. As NASA explains, "When NPP flies over Read more