Dawn is falling toward Vesta today as NASA's spacecraft is currently circling one of the largest asteroids in the solar system and preparing to take a closer look at an asteroid first viewed by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807. The picture above is one of the latest images taken by Dawn of three craters on the surface of Vesta called “Snowman”that are located in Vesta's northern hemisphere. The associated picture below is of craters visible in the southern e...

The human journey to the beginning of space and time will get a detailed view of Mars using the Mast Camera on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, once Curiosity lands on the surface of Mars, sometime around August 2012, according to the latest estimates by NASA. Space travel is by necessity extremely well planned and every detail must be worked out to a set time table if the Curiosity is to accomplish its mission. All aspects of the mission parameters must be analysed and reanalysed to ensure eve...

The nights of September 2010 will feature essentially the same night sky as the one your ancestors used as a basis for many of the myths and stories that have been passed down to the modern world of today. September's star gazers can sit huddled around the fire each night of the month, as celestial delights about on a nightly basis, just as they did thousands of years in the past. The perfect time to board your time machine to the stars and take a journey through space and time or lay your ba...

Scientists using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to look beneath Mar's north polar ice cap and get an idea of the lay of the ground think they know how Chasma Boreale and the much discussed series of spiral troughs were formed. The formation of Chasma Boreale and enigmatic spiral troughs have been talked about for four decades by space scientists and am...