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interior unlike that of any other rocky planet in our solar system and a surprisingly dynamic history,

remained geologically active for a surprisingly large chunk of its evolutionary history, researchers said

planet's huge iron core is even larger than they had thought

Confirming decades of suspicion, a NASA spacecraft has spotted vast deposits of water ice on the planet closest to the sun

Temperatures on Mercury can reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius

around the north pole, in areas permanently shielded from the sun's heat

This is the first transit of the sun by a planet observed from any planet other than Earth, and also the first imaging of Mercury from Mars

Mercury fills only about one-sixth of one pixel as seen from such great distance, so the darkening does not have a distinct shape, but its position follows Mercury's expected path based on orbital calculations.

The observations were made on June 3, 2014,

NASA’s Curiosity rover

does get a chance to skygaze on occasion. And while looking at the Sun on June 3, 2014

the rover’s Mastcam spotted

The bigger the star, the lower the frequency, or 'pitch' of its song

The team determined Kepler-37's mass is about 80 percent the mass of our sun

That's the lowest mass star astronomers have been able to measure using oscillation data for an ordinary star

Scientists have discovered a new planet orbiting a Sun-like star, and the exoplanet is the smallest yet found in data from the Kepler mission

Kepler-37b, is smaller than Mercury, but slightly larger than Earth’s Moon

discovery came from a collaboration between Kepler scientists and a consortium of international researchers who employ asteroseismology

Transits of Venus across the disk of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments

only six such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882

event begins with contact I which is the instant when the planet's disk is externally tangent with the Sun. The entire disk of the Venus is first seen at contact II when the planet is internally tangent with the Sun. During the next several hours, Venus gradually traverses the solar disk at a relative angular rate of approximately 4 arc-min/hr. At contact III, the planet reaches the opposite limb and is once again internally tangent with the Sun. The transit ends at contact IV when the planet's limb is externally tangent to the Sun

First astronauts selected

In 1959, NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts for project Mercury. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton were chosen from 110 applicants. Their training program at Langley, which ranged from a graduate-level course in introductory space science to simulator training and scuba-diving. Project Mercury, NASA's first high profile program, was an effort to learn if humans could survive in space. NASA required astronaut candidates to be male, not over 40 years old, not more than 5' 11" height and in excellent physical condition. On 5 May 1961, Shepard became the first American in space

Astronomers have discovered two alien planets around the same star whose orbits come so close together that each rises in the night sky of its sister world

,200 light-years from Earth

differ greatly in size and composition but come within just 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) of each other, closer than any other pair of planets known,

, a portion of the terrain surrounding the northern margin of the Caloris basin

an elevated block in the shape of a certain carbonite-encased smuggler who can make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs

This block may be part of the original surface that pre-dates the formation of Caloris, which was shaped by material ejected during the basin-forming event

In 2000, a conjunction of the five bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - formed a rough line across the sky with the Sun and Moon. Unfortunately, nothing was visible from the earth, because the the line of planets was behind the Sun and hidden in its brilliance. Such a conjunction last happened in Feb 1962 and will not happen again until Apr 2438. Throughout former history, a conjuction event was regarded with foreboding. However, now science can be dismissive. Donald Olson, an expert on tides at Southwest Texas State University, working with the assistance of a graduate student, Thomas Lytle, calculated the stress on the Earth caused by the Moon and eight planets has often been routinely greater, most recently on 6 Jan 1990

Conjunction of the planets

First U.S. space flight

Wednesday, May 28

New Moon

(exact at 2:40 p.m. EDT)

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) snapped a series of photographs of the two 16.5-foot-wide (5 meters) craters, which mark where the space agency's twin Grail probes ended their gravity-mapping mission, and their operational lives, on Dec. 17.

It's a bit of a surprise that the LROC team was able to find the craters at all

the craters are small, nondescript features on a body riddled with impact scars