Early Asteroid

An asteroid whizzed within 2.54 million miles of Earth yesterday, a day earlier than NASA expected/

NASA says the early flyby wasn't a shock, as the asteroid's orbit isn't precisely known.

Oldest Galaxy Yet

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found the oldest galaxy yet, a tiny one that formed only 400 million years after the Big Bang.

Because it formed so soon after the universe cooled enough to allow matter to exist, the galaxy says something important about the structure of the early universe.

Fifty-Fifty For SpaceX

A Falcon 9 rocket successfully put its payload into orbit, but the booster stage failed to land softly on a drone ship.

SpaceX has soft landed a booster on land, but not yet on a ship.

Valleys Of Mars

A new study using computer simulations of early Mars suggests the valleys of the planet were not cut by volcanic activity as assumed, but by water.

Simulations suggest early Mars had a cold, dense atmosphere, and heavy rain and snow fell, creating the valleys.

Dust Storm

A major dust storm seems to be developing on Mars.  An edge of it seems to have blown over the position of NASA's Opportunity rover.

Researchers are eager to compare dust in the storm to dust Opportunity has collected.

Kelly Home

Scott Kelly safely returned to Earth yesterday after 340 days in space.

Comparing his physical condition with that of his identical twin brother will hopefully provide insight into how the human body copes with long term weightlessness.

Transit Zone

A new study defines the "transit zone" as the area in the galaxy that would allow aliens to observe Earth transiting the face of the Sun, and thus learn Earth has life, even intelligent life.  There are roughly 100,000 stars in the zone.

Researchers suggest focusing SETI searches on those stars.