The universe’s mysterious dark matter gets a little more mysterious. And Hubble celebrates its 22nd birthday by showing off its keen vision, capturing an immense and detailed view of a nearby star-forming region.

• Dark Matter Core Defies Explanation in Hubble Image
• Hubble's 22nd Anniversary Image Shows Turbulent Star-making Region

A jet streams from a supermassive black hole in galaxy M87.

Astronomers have suspected that a gigantic black hole resides at the center of our Milky Way galaxy for some time now, but they can’t say for sure. Now scientists are hoping to image this mysterious object with a world-wide array of radio telescopes.

• Space.com on the black hole search.

Storms gather over Washington, DC, in this NASA satellite image. Credit: EOS

What do extrasolar planet systems have to do with Earth weather? Perhaps a lot. The United Kingdom Met Office, which, handles the UK national weather service, has a research team looking at applying space-weather models to the Earth, Sun and our solar system. If the models can explain what is seen in other planetary systems, different from our own, then they can help us understand the physics that drives our weather and climate.

• Space.com discusses the possibilities.

Astronomers monitor asteroids to evaluate the risk of one striking Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL

An asteroid known as 2012 DA14 was discovered in Feb 2012 and is on track for close swing by Earth in 2013. Many reports circulated about it hitting our planet, but that’s not going to happen. Astronomers are monitoring the asteroid for calculations on its future passes.

• Bad Astronomy on the asteroid miss.
• Near-Earth Object Program.

This galaxy is believed to be home to an intermediate-size black hole.

The existence of black holes has been known for some time, and it can seem like we know all about them. We know that individual, stellar-size black holes form at the end of a massive star’s life. We also know that supermassive black holes exist in the center of galaxies, and it is assumed that they form from the merger of medium-size black holes. Yet these medium-size objects have not been found. Now an x-ray telescope’s discovery suggests they do exist. New observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and the SWIFT telescope yield new clues.

• HubbleSite news release on the story.
• Wired discusses the galaxy.

False-color image showing Venus' clouds Credit: NASA

Some strange, gigantic explosions, which seem to be fueled by fueled by solar energy, have been detected just above the surface of the planet Venus. These powerful explosions have also been detected in the past near Earth, Saturn and possibly Mars.

• NASA on the Venus explosions.
• Science Daily on the Venus explosions.

A false-color image shows the distribution of hot gas, starlight and dark matter in Abell 520.

Although the concept of dark matter has been around for a long time, scientists aren’t really clear on what it is. Originally, scientists thought that dark matter was associated with and “stuck to” the luminous matter we see – stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies and other groupings. But new observations confirm a suspicion that emerged a few years ago: dark matter does not always behave exactly like normal matter.

• HubbleSite news release on the discovery.
• Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Abell 520.

The Orion crew module. Credit: NASA

NASA is studying a plan for a “human-tended waypoint” near the Moon’s far side that could oversee robotic operations on the lunar surface — and be a jumping-off point for more complex missions.

• Space.com on the outpost concept.
• NASA on Lagrangian points.