Recent observations from NASA and Japanese X-ray observatories have helped clarify one of the long-standing mysteries in astronomy -- the origin of cosmic rays.

When Sputnik was lifted into space on October 4, 1957, it was humankind's first step into the final frontier. The small aluminium sphere emitted a shrill signal and orbited the Earth for three months.

A U.S. spacecraft named Dawn has blasted off from Cape Canaveral on an exploration mission to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, NASA said.

Scientist have revealed that gaps in the dusty discs surrounding newborn stars seem to be the key to how planets form. Scientists have used a new 3D model, the first of its type to include information about both gas and dust in the proto-planetary disc, to predict what happens.

Stargazers are in for a treat tonight when the sun, the earth and the moon line up, creating the second total lunar eclipse for 2007. The earth's shadow will start crossing the moon at 6:00pm AEST and will completely cover the moon at around 8:40pm AEST.

A total eclipse of the moon with duration of three hours and 33 minutes will occur on Tuesday at 1421 hrs and end at 1754 hrs and will be visible in some parts of India.

The second lunar eclipse of the year is another total eclipse. It is a deeper event since it is the first central total eclipse since 2000. The eclipse occurs at the ascending node of Luna's orbit in southern Aquarius. Since the Moon is 2.6 days shy of perigee, it will appear 8% larger (= 1.2 arc-minutes) than it was during March's eclipse.

In 2008 a school of young astrophysicists will be founded in Armenia. It became known during the congress of the European and Armenian astronomers which kicked off on August 20 in Armenia.

An undersea mission simulating the space environment will provide data for development of tools to quickly assess stress, fatigue and cognitive fitness in preparation for performing critical mission tasks.

An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest-radius and lowest-density exoplanet of all those whose mass and radius are known. It is a gas-giant planet about twice the size of Jupiter, and is likely to have a curved cometlike tail. It has been named TrES-4, to indicate that it is the fourth planet detected by the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) network of telescopes.

Astronomers have found what they say is the largest planet ever discovered in the universe, so big that it is baffling scientists and so light that it could theoretically float on water.

The world's largest bolometer camera for submillimetre astronomy is now in service at the 12-m APEX telescope, located on the 5100m high Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. LABOCA was specifically designed for the study of extremely cold astronomical objects and, with its large field of view and very high sensitivity, will open new vistas in our knowledge of how stars form and how the first galaxies emerged from the Big Bang.