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Gusting winds and the pulsating exhaust plumes from the Phoenix spacecraft's landing engines could complicate NASA's efforts to sample frozen soil from the surface of Mars, according to atmospheric scientists.

Picture the Milky Way galaxy--a disk of stars and gas, a stellar spheroid and an enormous halo of dark matter. It spirals around a black hole that is supermassive--about 3 million solar masses. The Milky Way's total mass is about 100 billion solar masses--enormous to us but average among galaxies. Then imagine that galaxy encountering its identical twin. The first galaxy merges with the second to produce a galaxy that's even grander and greater. Cosmologists think that's how galaxies grow--through a complex process of continuous mergers.

Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione are flinging great streams of particles into space, according to data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini mission to Saturn. The discovery suggests the possibility of some sort of geological activity, perhaps even volcanic, on these icy worlds. The particles were traced to the two moons because of the dramatic movement of electrically charged gas in the magnetic environs of Saturn.

A team of astronomers from Canada, France and the United States is announcing the discovery of a record-breaking black hole located nearly 13 billion light years from the Earth. Details of the discovery, made with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, are being presented today by Dr Chris Willott, of the University of Ottawa, to astronomers and astrophysicists during the annual conference of the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA 2007) in Kingston, Ontario. Future observations of this black hole will shed light on the early evolution of the Universe.

A young star's strange elliptical ring of dust likely heralds the presence of an undiscovered Neptune-sized planet according to astronomers. Stars in the early stages of life are surrounded by dust clouds that thin out and dissipate as the star reaches maturity, becoming rings in their final stages. One star, however, has a dust ring that has long puzzled astronomers because it is not centered around the star as usual. Instead, the ring is elliptical, with the parent star off to one side.

UC Berkeley geophycists are providing strong evidence that Mars once had an ocean. Naysayers have argued that what appear to be ancient coastlines near the North Pole are too warped to be true seashores. The researchers claim, however, that this anomaly resulted from the tilt of Mars' spin axis 2 to 3 billion years ago, possibly because the weight of surface water made the planet tip like a weighted top.

The International Space Station spread its new set of wings Tuesday, and the crew members prepared for the mission's next spacewalk. The solar arrays on the newly installed Starboard 3 and 4 truss segment deployed to their full length with the assistance of the STS-117 crew.

A unique discovery of two celestial explosions at exactly the same position in the sky has led astronomers to suggest they have witnessed the death of one of the most massive stars that can exist.

If one part of your car isn't properly maintained, it can affect how the entire vehicle runs -- especially if you're taking a long trip. The same can be said for the human body. That's why, when it comes to fitness in space, it's important to create a program addressing the whole system, parts included. To keep astronauts healthy on long missions, researchers are developing an integrated exercise program that addresses a number of the physical changes caused by microgravity.

An artificial, laser-fed star now shines regularly over the sky of ESO's VLT. This system provides assistance for the adaptive optics instruments on the VLT and so allows astronomers to obtain images free from the blurring effect of the atmosphere, regardless of the brightness and the location on the sky of the observed target. The system has now delivered its first scientific results, which prove to be unique.

Humans have yet to see Earth's center, as did the characters in Jules Verne's science fiction classic, "Journey to the Center of the Earth." But a new NASA study proposes a novel technique to pinpoint more precisely the location of Earth's center of mass and how it moves through space.

Using a robotic telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory, astronomers have for the first time measured the velocity of the explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. The material is travelling at the extraordinary speed of more than 99.999 percent of the velocity of light, the maximum speed limit in the universe.

"Boring" light from red dwarf star Gliese 581 means better odds for extraterrestrial life in that planetary system, according to University of British Columbia astronomer Jaymie Matthews. Approximately 20.5 light years from the Earth, Gliese 581 made the headlines in April 2007 when European scientists discovered a planet, named Gliese 581c. Dubbed "SuperEarth," the planet orbits Gliese 581 and could have water -- and thus able to support life.

Now, using supercomputers to simulate galaxy mergers, scientists at Stanford and elsewhere have seen the formation of a new type of structure-a central disk of gas that can be from a hundred to a few thousand light years wide and from a few hundred million to a billion solar masses. They report the first simulated formation of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) pair in the June 7 edition of Science Express, an online version of Science magazine.

Anyone connected by Internet can now see planet Mars better than at any time in history, through the eye of HiRISE, the most powerful camera ever to orbit another planet.

Actively growing supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies are common even in cosmic voids, the most rarefied and empty regions of the universe. In a study of more than 1,000 void galaxies, using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II), astronomers from Drexel and Widener Universities announced that the growth of these monster black holes -- with masses millions to hundreds of millions times that of our sun -- are found where galaxies are sparse and interact very little with each other. The researchers also found that the accretion of matter onto these void black holes is slower than in denser galactic environments.

Today, two and a half years after the historic landing of ESA's Huygens probe on Titan, a new set of results on Saturn's largest moon is ready to be presented. Titan, as seen through the eyes of Huygens still holds exciting surprises, scientists say.

Researchers will scan Venus during a spacecraft flyby this week using an $8.7 million instrument they designed and built for NASA's MESSENGER Mission, launched in 2004 and speeding toward Mercury.

Astronomers have made what is arguably the most detailed study of the environment of a pulsating red giant star, leading to significant progress in our understanding of the mechanism of how, before dying, evolved stars lose mass and return it to the interstellar medium.

Two and a half years after the historic landing of ESA's Huygens probe on Titan, a new set of results on Saturn's largest moon is ready to be presented. Titan, as seen through the eyes of the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, still holds exciting surprises, scientists say.