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NGC 6820 is an emission nebula that surrounds open cluster NGC 6823 in the constellation Vulpecula.

Emission nebulae are clouds of high temperature gas. The atoms in the cloud are energized by ultraviolet light from a nearby star and emit radiation as they fall back into lower energy states (in much the same way as a neon light). These nebulae are usually red because the predominant emission line of hydrogen happens to be red .

Velpecula is a faint constellation in the northern sky.

Since comets formed out in the cold depths of the Solar System, the existence of materials in them that must have been created in high temperatures has been a real puzzle, until now. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has observed the infrared signature of tiny silicate crystals, of the type found in comets, being created in the planet-forming disc around a young star called EX Lupi, in the constellation of Lupus.

The stellar outbursts occur when the growing young star accumulates a large amount of mass from the dusty, gaseous disc that is spinning around it. Each outburst sends a flash of heat permeating through the disc. At the distance the crystals were seen at, the temperature reached 725 degrees Celsius (about 1,000 kelvin), enough to thermally ‘anneal’ the silicate dust.

Following up on a tip by an amateur astronomer that a new dark "scar" had suddenly appeared on Jupiter, on 20th July, 2009 between 3 and 9 a.m. PDT (6 a.m. and noon EDT) scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, gathered evidence indicating an impact.

New infrared images show the likely impact point was near the south polar region, with a visibly dark "scar" and bright upwelling particles in the upper atmosphere detected in near-infrared wavelengths, and a warming of the upper troposphere with possible extra emission from ammonia gas detected at mid-infrared wavelengths.

It could be due to the comet but the scientists are not sure .

Image taken by Subaru Telescope shows comet -shaped knots lighting up the Helix nebula.

A nebula is cloud of gas and dust in space. Some nebulas are regions where new stars are being formed, while others are the remains of dead or dying stars. Nebulas come in many shapes and sizes. There are four different types of nebulas- planetary , reflection, emision and absorption nebulas.

Helix nebula is located about 710 light years from Earth and was first planetary nebula in which knots were abserved.

NASA and university scientists reviewing data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) say evidence is growing that the planet harbored life in its past or that Martian microbes exist now.

They say their views are based on the growing body of data on the diversity of water related minerals discovered by MRO. It is also supported by findings from other spacecraft such as Europe's Mars Express orbiter and NASA's Phoenix lander and twin Mars rovers.

The MRO data is being used to narrow the best sites to locate life related evidence, while also being safe enough for the Mars Science Laboratory rover "Curiosity" set for launch in 2011.

Venus and Earth both share a similar size, gravity and bulk composition and hence, sometimes it is nicknamed as Earth's twin. But with a thick cloak of sulphuric acid clouds and a surface pressure nearly one hundred times that of Earth , makes it less hospitable than Earth. Venus once possessed Earth-like oceans, which evaporated into space to leave a barren landscape.

Venus is a big planet, being heated by radioactive elements in its interior. Some areas in Venus appear to be composed of darker rock , which shows relatively recent volcanic flows.

Both Russia and America sent probes to Venus during the 1970s and 80s – Venera and Pioneer, respectively – that sampled rocks made of basalt. Basalt is formed from cooling lava erupted by volcanoes, and, as is the case on Earth, where magma up-wells along ocean ridges to make new oceanic crust.

The new map of Venus reveals lighter coloured and older rocks with characteristics similar to Earth's granitic continents. Granite is created when basaltic rocks are forced down into the fiery interior of the planet by the process of plate tectonics, which builds and destroys the Earth's crust in an endless cycle. Water combines with the basalt to form granite and the mixture is reborn through volcanic eruptions.

According to the planetary scientists if there is granite in Venus then there must have been ocean in the past.

Nineteen years after helping launch the Hubble Space Telescope, Charles F. Bolden Jr., a former combat pilot, Marine Corps major general and veteran space shuttle commander, has been selected by the Obama administration to serve as the space agency's next administrator. Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator for policy and plans and a space policy advisor to the Obama campaign, will serve as Bolden's deputy.

These talented individuals will help put NASA on course to boldly push the boundaries of science, aeronautics and exploration in the 21st century and ensure the long-term vibrancy of America's space program," Obama said in a statement Saturday.

Comet dust caught in the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere and scooped up by a NASA aircraft had been found to contain grains of dust dating back to before our Solar System formed. Dust like this is worth its weight in gold for telling us about the original conditions in the solar nebula that formed the planets.

The dust is from comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup, which last passed through the inner Solar System in 2002. A year later, Earth itself passed through the trail of the comet, and the NASA aircraft climbed to catch the dust. It was then handed over to a consortium of UK, US and German astronomers who found various chemical treasure troves, including in one dust particle four grains of silicate material that date back to before the formation of the Sun.

Unlike human skin which is damaged by prolonged exposure to sunlight over a lifetime, an asteroid's surface is aged in the first instances of its life.

Of course, the time scales of the exposure are much different: for an asteroid the damage is done over a period of one million years, but this is still a very short timeframe compared with the 4.6 billion year age of the Solar System itself.

New observations conducted using ESO's New Technology Telescope at La Silla and the Very Large Telescope at Paranal, astronomers have shed some light on this mystery. The astronomers looked at freshly exposed asteroid surfaces (caused by the collision of two asteroids) and noticed that they change colour in less than a million years.

The charged, fast moving particles in the solar wind damage the asteroid's surface at an amazing rate.The solar wind contains highly energetic particles that bombard the exposed surfaces of asteroids, eroding the molecules and crystals on the surface and rearranging them into different configurations with distinct colours and properties.

The Endeavour astronauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems today before packing up for the trip back to Earth Friday to close out a 16-day space station assembly mission. There are no technical problems of any significance, but forecasters are predicting a slight chance for rain and thunderstorms near Endeavour's Florida runway at the 10:48 a.m. EDT landing time.

Giant star Betelgeuse shed the equivalent mass of the Earth every year but how do it does is not properly understood. Using state of the art imaging techniques, astronomers have revealed a vast plume of gas and gigantic bubbles boiling on the surface of star Betelgeuse. The new technique will provide clues to how they shed the mass?

The images show that the whole outer shell of the star is not shedding material evenly in all directions, which may be due to either large scale gas motions caused by heating, or because of the star's rotation. Betelgeuse's atmosphere is bouncing vigorously up and down in bubbles that are as large as the supergiant star itself, and could be responsible for the ejection of the massive plume into space.

Betelgeuse is the nearest star to Earth.

Stephan's Quintet is a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth.

An amazing never before seen photo of Neil Armstrong showing his face through his space suit visor has come to light on the 40th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing.

It shows Armstrong's face in clear view as he walks across the lunar surface.

Glycine , an amino acid which is a fundamental building block of life has been found in a comet.

This is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet.

Glycine, has been identified in the samples returned from comet Wild 2 by NASA's Stardust mission.

Comets have long been thought to hold the secrets of our solar system's history and play an important role in delivering the building blocks of life to Earth.

The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the Universe may be common rather than rare.

New details of high energy particles detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope were revealed on 4th May, 2009 at the American Physical Society meeting held in Denver.

Since its launch last June Fermi has discovered a new class of pulsars, probed gamma-ray bursts and watched flaring jets in galaxies billions of light years away.

The Atlantis astronauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems early Thursday and began packing for landing Friday, weather permitting, to close out a successful mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. The flight plan calls for a de-orbit rocket firing at 8:49:16 a.m. Friday, setting up a landing on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:00:31 a.m. A second landing opportunity is available one orbit later, at 11:39:18 a.m.

With no major technical problems in orbit, the only question mark is the weather, with forecasters predicting a broken cloud deck at 4,000 feet, crosswinds above 15 knots and a chance of thundershowers within 30 nautical miles of the runway, all violations of NASA's landing weather flight rules.

High winds and torrential rains rumbled through the area overnight as severe thunderstorms lashed Florida's Space Coast. There is a 50 percent chance of heavy rain, high winds and thundershowers all day Thursday and more of the same expected overnight and Friday.

But the astronauts have conserved power and now have saved enough hydrogen and oxygen to power the ship's electricity producing fuel cells through Monday. As a result, NASA is not staffing backup landing sites Friday. If the weather or some other issue blocks the two available landing opportunities, the crew will stay in orbit an extra day and try again Saturday.

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Launch of the shuttle Endeavour, grounded by a gaseous hydrogen leak during fueling Saturday, is off until Wednesday at the earliest, NASA officials say. But because of the already planned launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite Wednesday, the shuttle team could be delayed to June 20, the last day this month Endeavour can be launched.