NASA: Universe News

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has captured the best and most complete glimpse yet of what lies beyond the solar system.

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star.

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Tuesday to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away.

Twenty-six educators from the United States have been selected for research flights aboard SOFIA, NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. As participants in the Airborne Astronomy Ambassadors program, the educators will partner with professional astronomers using SOFIA for scientific observations in 2012 and 2013.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago.

Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun. The planets orbit a single star, called KOI-961, and are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times the radius of Earth. The smallest is about the size of Mars.

Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of development. It is the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early universe.

An exceptional galaxy cluster, the largest seen in the distant universe, has been found using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation-funded Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile.

Using observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite and the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope, an international team of astronomers has identified the moment when a black hole in our galaxy launched superfast knots of gas into space.

After more than three years in space, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is extending its view of the high-energy sky into a largely unexplored electromagnetic range.

After 16 years in space, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has made its last observation. The satellite provided unprecedented views into the extreme environments around white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.

NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide range of space science topics during the AAS 2012 winter meeting. The meeting runs from Sunday, Jan. 8, through Thursday, Jan. 12, at the Austin Convention Center, Austin, Texas.

Cryogenic testing is complete for the final six primary mirror segments and a secondary mirror that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system.

In 2011, NASA began developing a heavy-lift rocket for the human exploration of deep space, helped foster a new era of commercial spaceflight and technology breakthroughs, fully utilized a newly complete space station and made major discoveries about the universe we live in, many of which will benefit life on Earth.

NASA has named physicist and former astronaut John Grunsfeld as the new associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Grunsfeld will take the reins of the office effective Jan. 4, 2012. He succeeds Ed Weiler, who retired from NASA on Sept. 30.

NASA will host a news teleconference at 1 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Dec. 20, announcing new discoveries by the Kepler mission.

An international team of astronomers has identified a candidate for the smallest-known black hole using data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE).

NASA has announced a unique opportunity to ask the commander of the International Space Station a question about his role on the orbiting outpost. Commander Dan Burbank will answer videotaped questions from the public during a live event tentatively set for Friday, Jan. 20 on NASA Television.

NASA will host a news briefing at 8 a.m. PST, Monday, Dec. 5, to announce new discoveries by the Kepler mission. The briefing, during the Kepler Science Conference, will be in building 152 at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.