Hubble blocked the light of the central star to directly observe a planet, larger than Jupiter, in this solar system.

Astronomers are inventing new ways to find planets around other stars. Most of the methods used thus far don’t involve actually seeing the planet; its presence is inferred from observations of the parent star. A large, Jupiter sized planet can be detected b y the “wobble” its gravity causes in the parent star’s motion. Other planets pass in front of their host stars, making them detectable by the dimming of the stars’ light.
A new idea is to block out the light from a bright star so that faint planets can be detected. This technique would be used to obtain direct images of the planets that normally cannot be seen right next to the bright star.
The device that blocks the starlight is called a starshade and would be placed in orbit far from the main telescope. The starshade is a clever concept, but would be tricky to engineer.

• Scientific American on the starshade concept.

The composition of a neutron star.

Neutron stars are the remnants of dead stars that have collapsed into small objects with incredible density. Their crusts could be 10 billion times stronger than steel. Forces from within the star crack the crust during “star quakes,” events similar to earthquakes, and blast powerful gamma rays into space.

• Space.com on neutron star crusts.
• National Geographic on neutron star crusts.

An asteroid strikes Earth in this artist’s depiction. Credit: Don Davis/NASA

Asteroids – were they a boon or bane when they struck Earth billions of years ago? One would think the period of bombardment was not a good thing for a planet! But a new study shows that the bombardment may actually have created environments where microbial organisms could have survived if they were already there. The study also suggests that such environments may have existed on other planets, such as Mars.

• NASA reports the study.
• University of Colorado news release on the study.
• NASA's astrobiology page.

Astronaut Scott Parazynski on Mount Everest.

A former NASA astronaut is searching for signs of hardy life on Mount Everest, which could provide a window into extreme environments that organisms might inhabit on hostile-appearing planets elsewhere in universe. Scott Parazynski’s mission makes him the first astronaut to scale Mount Everests.

• AOL on the astronaut's trip.
• Discovery Channel Q&A with astronaut Scott Parazynski.
• Space.com on the climb.

Astronomers capture an image of a star eight years before its explosive death, casting light on the development of supernovae. A jet of radiation and plasma caused by a black hole is starting to flicker. And recently developed techniques are being used on the Hubble archive to glean new information from old images.

• Hubble Uncovers an Unusual Stellar Progenitor to a Supernova
• Hubble Witnesses Spectacular Flaring in Gas Jet from M87's Black Hole
• Hubble Finds Hidden Exoplanet in Archival Data

Hubble after being released by the shuttle's robotic arm.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been restored after the hugely successful servicing mission by the Space Shuttle Atlantis astronauts and the hundreds of personnel who work on Hubble at NASA and elsewhere. Two new instruments are onboard, two instruments were repaired, and the telescope received new batteries, gyroscopes, and a computer for handling the science data.

• HubbleSite's Servicing Mission 4 page.
• NASA's Space Shuttle page.

A graph shows the mass of galaxies versus the mass of their central black holes.

Astronomers may have solved the cosmic chicken-and-egg problem of which formed first in the early universe — galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores. Astronomers believe almost all galaxies have massive black holes at their centers, as well as smaller black holes sprinkled throughout. Evidence is piling up that black holes came first.

• National Radio Astronomy Observatory news release on the finding.
• Curious About Astronomy describes black holes.
• An Introduction to Black Holes.

An artist's depiction of one of the STEREO probes.

The solar system might once have had another planet named Theia. Some researchers believe it existed 4.5 billion years ago and possibly collided with Earth to form our Moon. NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft are on their way to look for the debris that would be left over after such a collision.

• Science@NASA explains the STEREO hunt.
• The Daily Galaxy describes the Theia hypothesis.
• The Register reports on the Theia search.