Launched in 1990 and greatly extended in its scientific powers through new instrumentation installed during four servicing missions with the Space Shuttle, the Hubble telescope is getting ready for its last upgrade.
Mike Mumma and his team of researchers at Goddard Space Flight Center have made the first definitive observations of methane in the atmosphere of Mars.
The moons of our Solar System are very special objects - worlds in their own right - that by studying them, help us to understand how our own world formed. Some could harbour the secrets of life on Earth.
The saturnian system is an astronomer's dream - an "active" system with rings interacting with moons, moons with atmospheres and surfaces with fascinating features giving us whole new worlds to explore.
As of October 2008, there are 327 formally classified moons, including 166 moons orbiting six of the eight full-size planets Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while six orbit the "dwarf" planets Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris.