Illustration of the dipolar variation in the fine-structure constant, alpha, across the sky, as seen by the two telescopes used in the work: the Keck telescope in Hawaii and the ESO Very Large Telescope in Chile. IMAGE CREDIT: Copyright Dr. Julian Berengut, UNSW, 2010. [/caption] In order for astronomers to explore the outer reaches of our universe, they rely upon the assumption that the physical

The Opportunity rover's solar panels got a cleaning sometime between Sol 2274 and 2299. Credit: NASA/JPL, collage and annotation by Stu Atkinson. [/caption] Either some little Martians came by and gave the Opportunity rover a quick once-over cleaning, or a recent gust of wind blew layers of dust off her solar panels. The image above (supplied by our favorite photo- whiz Stu Atkinson), shows Oppy’s

ISS with shuttle Discovery docked on April 8, 2010. Credit: Ted Judah [/caption] This has to be one of the clearest close-up shots of the International Space Station ever taken from the ground! Plus it has the added bonus of having space shuttle Discovery docked to the station. Ted Judah, who lives in northern California captured this image — one of 150 he took during the an ISS pass over his obse

Artists impression of an asteroid flying by Earth. Credit: NASA Are we ready to act if an asteroid or comet were to pose a threat to our planet? No, says a new report from the National Research Council. Plus, we don’t have the resources in place to detect all the possible dangerous objects out there. The report lays out options NASA could follow to detect more near-Earth objects (NEOs) that could

Panel on the right shows The upper panel shows the simulated light curve (black dots) of a planetary event in M31. Credit: Ingrosso, et al. [/caption] Using a technique called Pixel-lensing, a group of astronomers in Italy may have detected a planet orbiting another star. But this planet is unique among the 300-plus exoplanets discovered so far, as it and its parent star are in another galaxy. The