During the 11-day mission's five spacewalks, astronauts will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014.

NASA's Kepler mission has taken its first images of the star-rich sky where it will soon begin hunting for planets like Earth.

NASA's Kepler mission successfully launched into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II at 10:49 p.m. EST, Friday, March 6, 2009

Launch of NASA's Kepler telescope is targeted for no earlier than Friday, March 6, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

This image of Centaurus A shows a spectacular new view of a supermassive black hole's power.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, scheduled to launch in March on a journey to search for other Earths, has arrived in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

How do you weigh the biggest black holes in the universe? One answer now comes from a completely new and independent technique that astronomers have developed using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Taking advantage of a unique cosmic configuration, astronomers have measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in the extremely strong gravity of a pair of superdense neutron stars. Essentially, the famed physicist's 93-year-old theory passed yet another test.

Astronomers recently announced that they have found a novel explanation for a rare type of super-luminous stellar explosion that may have produced a new type of object known as a quark star.

Scientists working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have concocted an innovative recipe for giant telescope mirrors on the Moon. To make a mirror that dwarfs anything on Earth, just take a little bit of carbon, throw in some epoxy, and add lots of lunar dust.

Researchers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered large amounts of simple organic gases and water vapor in a possible planet-forming region around an infant star, along with evidence that these molecules were created there. They've also found water in the same zone around two other young stars.

Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures.

Finding means solar systems like ours may be common throughout the galaxy.

"On January 4, 2008, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared—and this signals the start of Solar Cycle 24," says David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles. Lately, we've been experiencing the low ebb, "very few flares, sunspots, or activity of any kind," says Hathaway. "Solar minimum is upon us."

It’s well known that black holes can slow time to a crawl and tidally stretch large objects into spaghetti-like strands. But according to new theoretical research from two NASA astrophysicists, the wrenching gravity just outside the outer boundary of a black hole can produce yet another bizarre effect: light echoes.

One of the fastest moving stars ever seen has been discovered with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This cosmic cannonball is challenging theories to explain its blistering speed.

Astronomers have announced the discovery of a fifth planet circling 55 Cancri, a star beyond our solar system. The star now holds the record for number of confirmed extrasolar planets orbiting in a planetary system.

Astronomers have discovered a chaotic scene unlike any witnessed before in a cosmic "train wreck" between giant galaxy clusters...

How many stars does it take to "raise" a planet? In our own solar system, it took only one - our sun. However, new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that planets might be forming in systems with as many as four stars.

Research explains century-old mystery about the interior of the sun

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind a star streaking through space at supersonic speeds.

Caused wooly mammoth extinction, global cooling and end of early human Clovis culture

A NASA satellite has captured the first occurrence this summer of mysterious shiny polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth’s surface.

Maybe it's the Calm Before the Storm