Astronomy Facts

104 facts, from the everyday to the astonishing.

All Astronomy facts

Comets and Asteroids

• Catch A Shooting Star
• Large Asteroid Zooms Safely Past Earth
• Look, Up in the Sky. It's A Bird. No It's A Meteorite!
• NASA Spacecraft Reveals Surprising Anatomy Of A Comet
• Stars With Long Hair
• The Minor Planets
• Uncharted Meteors
• X-ray Emissions From Comets

Cosmology

• A Map of the Sky
• Binary and Multiple Star Systems
• Dark Energy Changes the Universe
• Dark Matter Mystery
• From Here To There
• Hats Off to the Sombrero
• Introduction to Constellations
• Live Fast, Blow Hard, and Die Young
• Near-Earth Supernovas
• Neutron Stars
• Reading The Colors of the Spectrum
• The Big Bang Model
• The Chandra Mission
• The First Starlight
• The Oldest Light in the Universe
• The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)
• What is Dark Energy?
• What Powered the Big Bang?

Deep Space

• A Ring Around a Dying Star
• Ancient Planet
• Ancient Planet in a Globular Cluster Core
• Astronomers Glimpse Feeding Of A Galactic Dragon
• Black Hole Sound Waves
• Cosmos Provides Astronomers with Planet-Hunting Tool
• Crab Nebula
• Galaxy Cluster RDCS 1252.9-2927
• Groups & Clusters of Galaxies
• Hubble & Keck Teams Find Farthest Known Galaxy in Universe
• It's a Supernova
• Light Fantastic
• Magnitude of an Astronomical Object
• N81
• New Evidence Points to a Gamma-Ray Burst... In Our Own Backyard
• Nursery of Giants Captured in New Spitzer Image
• Powerful Quasars
• Starburst, No, Not The Candy
• The Antennae
• White Dwarfs

Exploration

• Astronaut Photography
• Backyard Telescopes for New Planets. Is it Possible?
• Exercising In Space
• GP-B: More Than Just a Pretty Face
• Laser Guide Stars
• Microbes In Space
• Mission: Gather Comet Dust; Return To Earth
• Mixed Up In Space
• Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age
• Stopping In Thin Air
• The Brave and Cold Ulysses
• The Devil's In The Details
• Voyager Phone Home
• Wernher Von Braun
• What Is Microgravity?
• X-ray Telescopes

Observations

• Amazing GRACE
• An Old Science Experiment On The Moon
• How Far Are The Seven Sisters?
• Jumping Starlight
• Right Ascension & Declination
• Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Solves Mystery of Pulsar 'Speed Limit'
• The Constellations
• What Is Polarimetry?

Solar

• Does The Sun Go A Bit Wobbly?
• Is There Weather In Space?
• Keeping Your Balance for Good Science
• Solar Spitwads
• The Color of The Sunset
• The Sun’s Corona

Solar System

• 318 Times as Massive as Earth
• A Giant X-Ray Machine
• A Satellite Of Our Own
• Big Fish
• Blast Wave Blows Through the Solar System
• Exploring The 'Red Planet'
• Introduction To Jupiter
• It's Dusty Out There
• It's Gonna Hit Us... Or Is It?
• Jupiter's Great Red Spot - A Super Storm
• Lunar Explorations
• Mercury
• Mount Olympus
• Neptune: The Basics
• Not Quite A Planet
• Pluto Is Way Out There
• Pluto: Beyond Neptune Or Not?
• Saturn: The Basics
• Sibling Rivalry: A Mars/Earth Comparison
• The Kuiper Belt
• The Real Lord of the Rings
• The Strange Spin of Uranus
• The Strange Spires of Callisto
• The Sun, The Mighty Engine Of Our Solar System
• Two Face? Absolutely!
• Venus Is Hot Stuff
• What Happens at the Edge of a Black Hole?
• Will the Sun Shine Forever?