Three months ago, a new solar cycle began. This week, however, the sun surprised onlookers with three big sunspots from the previous solar cycle. Strangely enough, this is perfectly normal.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will play some crafty tricks to find water on the moon, such as using starlight to see into deep, dark craters and checking the temperature with a scientific device known as "Diviner."

Two nights ago, astronomers observed a cosmic explosion so intense it was visible to the naked eye from a distance of 7.5 billion light years.

For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights.

New research by NASA-supported scientists shows how atmospheric gravity waves, the kind we often see rippling in clouds overhead, can hit a thunderstorm and turn it into a deadly tornado.

Amateur astronomers around the world have noticed, something is happening to Saturn. The planet's rings are rapidly narrowing and, if this continues, before long they'll be just a wafer-thin line almost invisible to backyard telescopes.

To celebrate Women's History Month, an all-female team of scientists and engineers has taken control of Mars rover Spirit.

The surprises continue. Scientists studying the harvest of photos from MESSENGER's Jan. 14th flyby of Mercury have found several craters with strange dark halos and one crater with a spectacularly shiny bottom.

Imagine living on a planet where Northern Lights fill the heavens at all hours of the day. Around the clock, even in broad daylight, luminous curtains shimmer and ripple across the sky. News flash: Astronomers have discovered such a planet. Its name is Earth.

A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole.

New high-resolution radar maps of the Moon's south pole reveal a fantastic land with peaks as high as Mt. McKinley and crater floors four times deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Do you know who's orbiting the moon? The answer might surprise you. Find out in today's story from Science@NASA.

On Wednesday evening, February 20th, the full Moon over the Americas will turn a delightful shade of red and possibly turquoise, too. It's a total lunar eclipse—the last one until Dec. 2010.

NASA is inviting members of the general public from around the world to suggest a new name for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, otherwise known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008.

A team of scientists has just set off to explore a strange lake in Antarctica, which may be home to exotic forms of microscopic life.

NASA's Messenger spacecraft has beamed back some surprising new data from the planet Mercury. Highlights include a weird crater nicknamed "the Spider," a planetary tail of hydrogen atoms, and measurements that show giant Caloris basin is even bigger than researchers thought.

The two brightest planets are converging for a beautiful close encounter on Friday morning, February 1st.

NASA is preparing to launch a new space telescope named GLAST to study the most violent explosions in the history of our Universe.

Last week's historic flyby of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft gathered 500 megabytes of data and more than a thousand high-resolution photos covering nearly six million square miles of previously unseen terrain.

A cutting-edge laboratory has opened in Alabama. Its mission: to combat diseases ranging from asthma to malaria to stroke using data from NASA satellites. Space scientists and public health officials are working together to train the doctors of tomorrow in this far-out approach to medicine.

Images from NASA telescopes are jewels of the space program, marvelous to behold. But how do you behold them when you can't see? The answer lies between the covers of a new NASA-funded book written in Braille, Touch the Invisible Sky.

At a pivotal moment of the solar cycle, the NASA/ESA Ulysses spacecraft is flying over the sun's mysterious North Pole.

Hang on to your cell phones, a new solar cycle is underway. Solar Cycle 24 began last week with the appearance of a magnetically "backward" high-latitude sunspot.

NASA is bringing high-tech satellite images and visualization tools to bear on the unique environmental problems of Central America.