Stellary Starry Universe

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the tiniest solar system so far, composed of a red dwarf star with three rocky planets smaller than Earth.

Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble’s panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust. The warped shape of Centaurus A’s disk of gas and dust is evidence for a past collision and merger with another galaxy. The resulting shockwaves cause hydrogen gas clouds to compress, triggering a firestorm of new star formation. These are visible in the red patches in this Hubble close-up. At a distance of just over 11 million light-years, Centaurus A contains the closest active galactic nucleus to Earth. The center is home for a supermassive black hole that ejects jets of high-speed gas into space, but neither the supermassive black hole or the jets are visible in this image. This image was taken in July 2010 with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

International Space Station Commander Dan Burbank captured spectacular imagery of Comet Lovejoy from about 240 miles above the Earth’s horizon on Wednesday, Dec. 21. Burbank described seeing the comet two nights ago as “the most amazing thing I have ever seen in space,” in an interview with WDIV-TV in Detroit. Last night he captured hundreds of still images of the comet. A selection of images is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/gallery/index.html. Image Credit: NASA

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