Images of Enceladus highlight its frozen, reflective beauty, and its potential as a cradle for life.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - With liftoff tentatively penciled in for mid-February, SpaceX still awaits FAA approval of a launch license for what will be the firms first Falcon 9 rocket to launch from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center - on a critical NASA mission to resupply the space station - the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed today to Universe Today.

Hankering for some cometary action? An interplanetary interloper pays us a visit this weekend, sliding swiftly through the pre-dawn northern hemisphere sky.

Venus is a planet of extremes: extreme heat, extreme weather, and extremely long days. In fact, a single day on Venus lasts as long as 116.75 Earth days.

Located in the northern skies, in the direction of the Perseus constellation, is the open star cluster known as Messier 34.

Astronomy turns up in fascinating junctures in history. Besides just the romantic angle, we can actually pin down some contextual events in ancient history if we can tie them in with an event witnessed in the heavens.

This Friday evening watch the Moon tippy-toe right up to Earth's inner shadow for a sweet penumbral eclipse.

Juno recently conducted its fourth close flyby of Jupiter (a perijovian maneuver), and NASA is once again seeking public input on what they want to see photographed during the next pass.

The first orbit class SpaceX rocket that will ever be reflown to launch a second payload to space was successfully test fired by SpaceX engineers at the firms Texas test facility last week.

In the northern skies (recognizable from its W shape) is the familiar constellation of Cassiopeia, one of the 48 traditional constellations

A Martian meteorite that landed in Africa in 2012 has confirmed that Martian volcanic activity lasted 3 billion years or longer.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute have come up with an interesting way to slow down Starshot's mission to Alpha Centauri, a proposal which has the side benefit of exploring Proxima b as well.

Sure, this Superbowl Sunday brings with it the promise of sacks, fumbles and tackles... but have you ever seen the Moon run down a star in the end zone? Just such an event, termed as an occultation happens this weekend for folks living around the Mediterranean and — just maybe for some sharp-eyed telescope owning observers based around the Caribbean this coming weekend.

NASA has released the preliminary results of their study of prolonged stays in space on the human body.

Martian weather is both fascinating and extreme, involving such things as dry ice snows, planet-wide dust storms, and aurorae.