Venus-Jupiter conjunction each morning this weekend

The two brightest celestial objects after the Sun and Moon go through a close conjunction in early dawn, about an hour before sunrise. Watch them change position daily, while Mars keeps them company. Mercury is near the horizon.
Sky & Telescope diagram - See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/venus-jupiter-conjunction-this-weekend-with-mars-too/#sthash.4u5iHyFa.dpuf

The two brightest objects in the sky pass extremely close to one another every morning this weekend in an amazing spectacle easily visible to the naked eye.

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Celestial light show over Ireland tomorrow night

In an extremely rare sight, that won't be bettered for 107 years in evening skies, the two brightest star-like objects in the sky will pass very close to one another. They are the planets Venus and Jupiter.

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NASA Space Telescopes See Weather Patterns in Brown Dwarf

You think the weather where you are is bad?

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Voyager 1 Spacecraft Set To Leave Solar System

On September 5, 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket. Thirty-five years later, the planetary probe is now an interstellar traveler, having traveled farther from Earth than any manmade object in history. As of 21:00 Universal Time on September 4, 2012, Voyager 1 was 18.21 billion kilometers (11.31 billion miles) from home, or 121 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Light takes 33 hours and 44 minutes to travel the distance from the Sun to Voyager 1 and back. 

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NASA Announces New Mission To Mars

NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system's rocky planets. 

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Rover Curiosity Studies Martian Weather

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been investigating the Martian weather around it and the soil beneath it, as its controllers prepare for the car-size vehicle's first drive on Mars. 

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Mars Rover Curiosity Conducts Laser Test

This composite image, with magnified insets, depicts the first laser test by the Chemistry and Camera, or ChemCam, instrument aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRA.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars, using the beam from a science instrument to interrogate a fist-size rock called "Coronation."

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NASA's Curiosity Rover To Arrive At First Drill Site

The scientists and engineers of NASA's Curiosity rover mission have selected the first destination for their one-ton, six-wheeled mobile Mars laboratory. The target area, named Glenelg, is a natural intersection of three kinds of terrain. 

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Mars Rover Curiosity On Familar Ground

With its seven minutes of terror and a spectacular rocket-assisted landing behind it, the SUV-sized Mars rover Curiosity now finds itself just where scientists wanted it: at the northern edge and rim of Gale Crater. What’s remarkable is how familiar the landscape looks. 

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Cassini Cams Capture Saturn Storms

These false color mosaics from NASA's Cassini spacecraft capture lightning striking within the huge storm that encircled Saturn's northern hemisphere for much of 2011. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI.  

Saturn was playing the lightning storm blues. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured images of last year’s storm on Saturn, the largest storm seen up-close at the planet, with bluish spots in the middle of swirling clouds. Those bluish spots indicate flashes of lightning and mark the first time scientists have detected lightning in visible wavelengths on the side of Saturn illuminated by the sun.

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High Resolution Images Of Mars Landing Published

Close-up view of a zone where the soil at Curiosity's landing site was blown away by the thrusters on the rover's descent stage.

Remarkable image sets from NASA's Curiosity rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) are continuing to develop the story of Curiosity's landing and first days on Mars.

The images from Curiosity's just-activated navigation cameras, or Navcams, include the rover's first self-portrait, looking down at its deck from above. Another Navcam image set, in lower-resolution thumbnails, is the first 360-degree view of Curiosity's new home in Gale Crater. Also downlinked were two, higher-resolution Navcams providing the most detailed depiction to date of the surface adjacent to the rover.

"These Navcam images indicate that our powered descent stage did more than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an amazing freebie," said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The thrust from the rockets actually dug a one-and-a-half-foot-long [0.5 meter] trench in the surface. It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the bottom. Its depth below the surface is valuable data we can use going forward."

Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera, or CTX, aboard NASA's MRO has pinpointed the final resting spots of the six, 55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. The tungsten masses impacted the Martian surface at a high speed about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from Curiosity's landing location.

This color full-resolution image showing the heat shield of NASA's Curiosity rover was obtained during descent to the surface of Mars on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The image was obtained by the Mars Descent Imager instrument known as MARDI and shows the 15-foot (4.5-meter) diameter heat shield when it was about 50 feet (16 meters) from the spacecraft.

These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover's "head" or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.

The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle shows low-relief scarps and plains. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover's descent stage thrusters.

These images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show a before-and-after comparison of the area where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The images were taken by the Context Camera on MRO on Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.

This full-resolution color image from NASA's Curiosity Rover shows the gravel-covered surface of Mars. It was taken by the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) several minutes after Curiosity touched down on Mars.

This is the first image taken by the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover. It shows the shadow of the rover's now-upright mast in the center, and the arm's shadow at left. The arm itself can be seen in the foreground.

The navigation camera is used to help find the sun -- information that is needed for locating, and communicating, with Earth. After the camera pointed at the sun, it turned in the opposite direction and took this picture. The position of the shadow helps confirm the sun's location.

This is the first 360-degree panoramic view from NASA's Curiosity rover, taken with the Navigation cameras. Most of the tiles are thumbnails, or small copies of the full-resolution images that have not been sent back to Earth yet. Two of the tiles near the center are full-resolution.

Mount Sharp is to the right, and the north Gale Crater rim can be seen at center. The rover's body is in the foreground, with the shadow of its head, or mast, poking up to the right.

This Picasso-like self portrait of NASA's Curiosity rover was taken by its Navigation cameras, located on the now-upright mast. The camera snapped pictures 360-degrees around the rover, while pointing down at the rover deck, up and straight ahead. Those images are shown here in a polar projection. Most of the tiles are thumbnails, or small copies of the full-resolution images that have not been sent back to Earth yet. Two of the tiles are full-resolution.

This image shows the location (green) where scientists estimate NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars within Gale Crater, based on images from the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI). The landing estimates derived from navigation and landing data agree to within 660 feet (200 meters) of this MARDI estimate.

The red line shows the northern edge of the targeted landing region, a probability distribution defined by an ellipse.

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Busy First Weekend On Mars For NASA's Curiosity

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will spend its first weekend on Mars transitioning to software better suited for tasks ahead, such as driving and using its strong robotic arm.

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Cassini Probes Saturn's Moon Enceladus

Raw, unprocessed image of Saturn's rings and it's moon Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Saturn's moon Enceladus shows its icy face and famous plumes in raw, unprocessed images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its successful flyby on Nov. 6, 2011. 

During this Enceladus encounter, the 16th of Cassini's mission, the spacecraft passed the moon at distance of about 300 miles (500 kilometers) at 10:11 p.m. PDT on Nov. 5 (04:49 UTC on Nov. 6). 

To see the raw images, go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/ and click on "Search Images." 

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. 

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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