A faint, infrared glow above the winter poles of Mars is giving new insights into seasonal changes in the planet's atmospheric circulation. The tell-tale night emission was first detected in 2004 in observations made by the OMEGA imaging spectrometer on ESA's Mars Express orbiter.

Writing in a recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, a team of French scientists reported on the first detection of an infrared emission above the polar regions of Mars. The emission, at a wavelength of 1.27 microns, was detected on three occasions (in 2004, 2005 and 2006) during a series of 40 observations made by OMEGA above the planet's limb.

Infrared emissions are not unusual in planetary atmospheres. In the upper atmospheres of both Venus and Mars, carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2) molecules are split or photodissociated by solar ultraviolet (UV) light. This produces oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the region known as the thermosphere, at an altitude of about 80-90 km above each planet's dayside. Read More

Moscow: Meteor-1, the Soviet Union’s first fully operational weather satellite, will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere after more than four decades in orbit, the web site of the US Strategic Command said.

The Meteor satellite series was developed in the Soviet Union during the sixties. On March 26, 1969, a Vostok rocket launched Meteor-1, the very first version of the Soviet Meteor satellite network, into orbit. The satellite terminated operations in July 1970, according to NASA information.

The spacecraft is expected to begin falling at 3:13 a.m. Moscow time on 27 March with debris estimated to fall into the Indian Ocean south of Sri Lanka, the US Strategic Command said. Read More

Two tiny asteroids zipped close by Earth today (March 26), passing between our planet and the orbit of the moon, but posed no threat of impacting our world, NASA scientists say.

The two space rocks flew by Earth in rapid fire; one zoomed by early in the day while the second buzzed the planet at 1:09 p.m. EDT (1709 GMT), according to astronomers with NASA's Asteroid Watch program.

"Both are very small (under 10 meters) and pose no risk," the scientists wrote in a Twitter update.

The first object, called asteroid 2012 FP35, came within 96,000 miles (154,000 km) of the Earth when it passed by earlier today, the scientists wrote. Asteroid 2012 FP35 is just under 30 feet (9 meters) wide, making it about the size of a tour bus. Read More

Satellite-operated lasers, not "Armageddon"-style bombs, could deflect asteroids headed for a catastrophic collision with Earth, Scottish scientists believe.

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are floating the possibility that a flock of small satellites could fly in formation and fire solar-powered lasers at a threatening asteroid.

Massimiliano Vasile, of Strathclyde's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said his more subtle approach of using "a flotilla of small agile spacecraft" would eliminate the difficulties associated with other schemes that involve one large spacecraft attacking the asteroid.

He admitted, though, that there would be some challenges in perfecting his proposed technique.

"The use of high power lasers in space for civil and commercial applications is in its infancy and one of the main challenges is to have high power, high efficiency and high beam quality all at the same time," he said. Read More

Venus, Jupiter and the moon have appeared completely visible together at sunset tonight in an already exciting month for stargazers.

In what astronomers call a conjunction, the two planets can be seen in the western sky just below the crescent moon.

Venus appears much brighter due to its relative closeness, compared with Jupiter, which is much further away. Read More

A Smithsonian-associated museum is displaying an item it says is an 'authentic alien artifact' from a 1986 alleged UFO crash in Russia.

The National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas unveiled an exhibit titled Area 51: Myth or Reality, which presents historical records of the U.S. military site that has long been called the most secret place on Earth.

Among the items is a series of small bits of debris from an incident known as the Russian Roswell.

A clear glass case displays glassy spheres that are debris from a red sphere that streaked over the Russian mining town of bits of metal in vials that streaked over the town of Dalnegorsk and crashed into Mount Izvestkovayaon January 29 1986.

The exhibits description of the debris reads: 'Three Soviet academic centers and 11 research institutes analyzed the objects from this UFO crash. The distance between atoms is different from ordinary iron. Radar cannot be reflected from the material.'

'Elements in the material may disappear and new ones appear after heating. One piece disappeared completely in front of four witnesses. The core of the material is composed of a substance with anti-gravitational properties.'

The debris was given to Las Vegas TV reporter George Knapp, who was the first American to visit the Russian crash site in 1990. Read More

The six earthlings – three Russians, two Americans, and a Dutchman – aboard the International Space Station were stirred from their slumber Saturday morning to jump into emergency escape pods, once again drawing into focus the growing dangers of hurtling space junk.

The astronauts, orbiting 200 miles above the planet, were told by ground control to scramble into two docked Soyuz spacecrafts in case a piece of a wrecked Russian satellite should smash into the ISS, which could have heavily damaged the platform as both objects were traveling at orbital speeds – 17,500 miles per hour. The emergency was called off after the chunk passed by at an approximate distance of nine miles – which in space terms is a near-miss.

"Everything went by the book and as expected, the small piece of cosmos satellite debris passed the international space station without incident,” said a NASA spokesman.

Ground controllers did not believe the ISS was in extreme danger, but ordered the emergency maneuver after determining that the trajectories could intersect.

NASA says there are about 22,000 pieces of sizable space junk – primarily bits of old satellites – orbiting the earth and has in the past ordered the ISS crew to adjust the craft's path to avoid collisions. In all, NASA tracks nearly half a million pieces of space junk. more

(CNN) -- It's been billed as an astronomical equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider, offering new insights into the formation of the universe and so powerful that it might even detect alien life.

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is an international effort to build the world's largest radio telescope, one which will probe the dark heart of space shedding new light on dark matter, black holes, stars and galaxies.

"It will have a deep impact on the way we perceive our place in the universe and how we understand its history and its future," says Michiel van Haarlem, interim director general of the SKA project.

"We know we are going to discover things that we haven't already. It's going to be very exciting," van Haarlem said.

Taking its name from the total size of its collecting area, the SKA telescope will consist of 3,000 dish antennas, each one around 15 meters wide. Construction is slated to begin in 2016. Read More

An amateur astronomer has managed to capture recent images of Mars which appear to show cloud like formations on Mars.

Wayne Jaeschke, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, noticed the formations which can be seen rising up from the edge of the Martian disk after he took the pictures on March 20.

Some observers have suggested the so-called clouds are at least 150 miles away from the surface while others have suggested it could be debris which was disturbed after the Red Planet was hit by a meteor.

Social networking sites have been buzzing with the latest find which has prompted astronomers to investigate further and before they disappear.

'It's not completely unexpected. But it's bigger than we would expect, and it's definitely something that our atmosphere guys want to take a look at,' said Jonathon Hill, a member of the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University, to Cosmic Log. Read More

The giant asteroid Vesta possesses many features usually associated with rocky planets like Earth, according to data from a Nasa probe.

Vesta has been viewed as a massive asteroid, but after studying the surface in detail, scientists are describing it as "transitional".

The Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting Vesta - one of the Solar System's most primitive objects - since July 2011.

They have documented many unexpected features on its battered surface.

Mission scientists presented their latest results at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas.

Dawn's principal investigator, Christopher T Russell, told the meeting that the science team found it hard not to refer to the object as a planet. Read More

A recent spate of furious eruptions on the surface of the sun hurled a huge amount of heat toward Earth — the biggest dose our planet has received from our closest star in seven years, NASA scientists said.

The March 8 through 10 solar storm shot enough energy toward Earth to power every home in New York City for two years, according to space agency researchers.

Although the influx of solar energy puffed up the atmosphere, increasing drag on low-orbiting satellites, it caused fewer disruptions to electronic infrastructure such as electronic grids than some expected. It also offered plenty of eye candy, sparking dazzling auroras in many places.

"It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet," Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center said in a statement.

The solar eruptions began on March 6, and on March 8 a coronal mass ejection — a wave of charged particles — smashed into Earth's magnetic field. Read More