Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta's average global temperatures and solar-illumination.

Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.

Cold plasma has been well-hidden. Space physicists have long lacked clues to how much of this electrically charged gas exists tens of thousands of miles above Earth and how the stuff may impact our planet's interaction with the sun. Now, a new method developed by Swedish researchers makes cold plasma measurable and reveals significantly more cold, charged ions in Earth's upper altitudes than previously imagined.

8 years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a 3-month mission, NASA's enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission 5 months ago.

Carbon monoxide is often detected near young stars, but the gas is usually spread through the planet-forming disk. What’s different about this ring is that it is shaped more like a rope than a dinner plate, said Charles Cowley, professor emeritus in the University of Michigan who led the international research effort.

Using ESO's APEX telescope, a team of astronomers has found the strongest link so far between the most powerful bursts of star formation in the early Universe, and the most massive galaxies found today.