NASA has just released an image it is calling “Blue Marble 2012”, which the space agency is describing as the “most amazing high definition image of Earth.”

Sunspot 1402 is getting ready to hit Earth, only three days after Sunspot 1401 impacted the magnetic field surrounding our planet. This one is a little more problematic.

A triangular object seen in video taken by the NASA STEREO probe appears to show an alien object heading toward Earth. NASA scientists analyzed the images and have other, more rational, thoughts on the origin of this strange-looking space object.

An active sunspot erupted on the Sun on Thursday, January 19, 2012, and consequently a solar flare is heading in the direction of Earth, for an arrival two days later, on Saturday, January 21st.

Russian officials announced that its Phobos-Grunt probe fell out of Earth orbit, and crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean.

According to Russian space officials, the Phobos-Grunt probe, originally to go to the Mars’ moon Phobos and launched on November 9, 2011, will instead come crashing down back to Earth sometime on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

NASA announced on January 11, 2012, that its Kepler Space Telescope has detected three planets orbiting the star KOI-961. They are considered the smallest planets ever found outside of our solar system – all three are about half the radius of Earth.

American astronomer Carl Sagan spoke on October 13, 1994, about a photograph taken by the probe Voyager 1 from its far vantage point over four billion miles from Earth. As we explore further into the universe we should continue to  ponder about ourselves and our tiny little planet we call home.

For the night-owls, look up in the northern sky a little after midnight on Sunday December 11th and the moon which ought to be blazing down will be strangely dim.

A team of astronomers have established two ways to rank planets and moons as to how similar they are to Earth and how likely they are to hold the essentials to produce life.