m. c. de marco

True story: NASA technology saves Claus from a disaster at sea! Christmas (and the sport of fishing) may never be the same.

The planet Saturn is doing something rare and beautiful this holiday season. Find out what in today's story from Science@NASA.

NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. The size of the opening and the strange way it forms could overturn long-held ideas of space physics.

Solar flares are supposed to obliterate everything in their vicinity, yet one of the most powerful flares of the past 30 years has done just the opposite, emitting a beam of pure and unbroken hydrogen atoms. Researchers think this strange event could yield vital clues to the inner workings of solar flares.

From humble beginnings in a Utah beryllium mine to the most advanced laboratories in the world, the mirrors of NASA's next great observatory are taking an incredible journey to space.

This Friday's full Moon is the biggest full Moon of the year. It is a 'perigee Moon' as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons we've seen earlier in 2008.

Astronomers from NASA and Caltech are predicting a near-storm of Leonids in 2009 based on a surprising outburst of meteors just two weeks ago.

Venus and Jupiter are converging for a spectacular three-way conjunction with the crescent Moon--a rare gathering some are calling 'the sky show of the year.' Today's story tells when and where to look.

The solar wind appears to be ripping big chunks of air from the atmosphere of Mars. This could help solve a longstanding mystery about the Red Planet.

An international team of researchers has discovered a puzzling surplus of high-energy electrons bombarding Earth from space. The source of these cosmic rays is unknown, but it must be close to the solar system and it could be made of dark matter.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. The planet, called 'Fomalhaut b', orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years from Earth.

NASA astronomers have set up a monitoring station to scan the night sky for unknown or unexpected meteor showers--and they're finding more than they bargained for.

A surge of new-cycle sunspots in October may signal the beginning of the end of the ongoing solar minimum.

Researchers have discovered 'magnetic portals' forming high above Earth that can briefly connect our planet to the Sun. Not only are the portals common, one space physicist contends they form twice as often as anyone had previously imagined.

The planets are gathering for spooky sunset sky show on Oct. 31st. Read today's story to find out where to look.

Gamma-ray bursts are by far the brightest and most powerful explosions in the Universe, second only to the Big Bang itself. So it might seem a bit surprising that a group of them has gone missing.

Cosmic explosions known as gamma-ray bursts are curiously picky about where they explode. Shunning spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, gamma-ray bursts prefer to 'go off' in oddball star systems that astronomers are just beginning to understand.

A curiously short-lived type of gamma-ray burst has astronomers puzzled. Leading experts discuss the clues at today's Gamma-ray Burst Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a new kind of pulsar that hints at a previously unsuspected population of stars waiting to be found in the Milky Way.

More than four decades after they were discovered, gamma-ray bursts continue to mystify astrophysicists. Next week, experts from 25 countries will converge on Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss and debate clues to the biggest explosions since the Big Bang itself.