It is expected to be announced that NASA will cut funding for the exploration of the planet Mars after Congress cut its 2013 budget. However, a former high ranking NASA official calls the move “irrational and unjustified.”

An international team of astronomers has taken images that show large-scale clumps of dark matter throughout the universe. These images, the largest so far taken, help scientists learn more about dark matter, and its role in making up most of the mass of the universe.

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.

Australia had plenty of moon units gazing up at Earth’s major orbiter early this morning, as a red, dead moondemption eclipsed the threat of ash – but wasn’t able to overcome view-marring cloudy weather for some.

Astronomers with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey produced a third generation map of the universe – what it looked like about 12 billion years ago. It is the most comprehensive map so far produced of our universe. But, where is the Bump?

Got some time to search the vastness of the universe? Help out at Zooniverse and you may discover something in the universe that even puzzles astronomers. And, you get to call yourself a Zooite.

An American theoretical physicist is running complex computer simulations as to the shape of the universe. So far he thinks a torus could be a likely shape. We could be living inside a doughnut (hopefully with those little sprinkles on top).

NASA announced (1/26/2011) that the Hubble Space Telescope has viewed the light coming from a compact galaxy that existed only 480 million years after the Big Bang. It is the oldest known object to be found in the universe.

Some things are more relative than others, they say, and some are more incomprehensible too. Every now and then It pays to review our position in the scale of things, helping us to renew our wonderment about the cosmos and understand better the relative import of daily dramas and events.

Two U.S. astronomers contend our Universe has three times more stars than previously thought. That would make for upwards of 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars.