A bolt of lightning strikes over Strasbourg, France (Ian O'Neill) As you may have noticed, things have been rather quiet on Astroengine of late. This is partly due to my pan-European trek and my work on Discovery News, but mainly due to my horrid affliction of procrastination. Hence why I’m late...

There’s not a lot to add to this video, it’s too awesome. It was captured by NASA’s converted DC-8 jet that was flying over Australia when the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft broke up during re-entry. I’ll let the video do the rest of the talking: Oh yes, and that little dot ahead...

The Moon, Space Shuttle Atlantis, an aurora plus Kibo, all in one breathtaking scene (Soichi Noguchi) The instant I saw this photograph I realized I was seeing something so beautiful, I’d have a hard job writing something to accompany it. Coming straight from the Twitter feed of Soichi Noguchi,...

My impression as to how a black hole 'aurora' might look like near an event horizon (Ian O'Neill/Discovery News) Usually, aurorae happen when the solar wind blasts the Earth’s atmosphere. However, black holes may also have a shot at producing their very own northern lights. What’s more, we...

The Voyager 2 spacecraft has been speeding through the Solar System since 1977 and it’s seen a lot. Besides scooting past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the probe is now passing through the very limit of the heliosphere (called the heliopause) where it has begun to detect a magnetic field...

Astroengine.com is now being syndicated by The Christian Science Monitor! The CSM has been around for ever (well, since 1908) and it’s a publication that’s won seven Pulitzer Prizes. That’s all kinds of awesome. Personally, I’ve been following CSMonitor.com for some time and their...

That's no space rock: The Israeli 'meteorite' that never was (Ilan Lilush, Tel Aviv Police). UPDATE (April 25): The unidentified combustible object has been identified as being “man made” rather than anything cosmic in origin. “It is definitely not a meteor and not a different natural...

The Habitation Extension Module (HEM) proposed by UK engineers (University of Bristol) The UK has started its own space agency (at long last) and the agency has a logo. The latter is the big news here. At a time when motivation for manned spaceflight by NASA is dwindling and yet private industry is forcing...

Sure, NASA is a government agency, but can you think of any other agency with the power to inspire a nation? That’s the gist of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s presentation at the University of New York at Buffalo on March 31st, certainly worth watching.

The Orion Nebula's star-forming region (NASA). Firstly, apologies that it’s been over a month since last posting to Astroengine.com. Call it slacking off, call it a sabbatical, either way, it’s not good. I’ve actually prepared several half-finished articles, but I just never got around...