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The Open Data project is part of the NASA Open Government Initiative, and is intended to improve access to NASA data. This data catalog is a continually-growing listing of publicly available NASA datasets.

Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and SDSS-II, the SDSS-III Collaboration is working to map the Milky Way, search for extrasolar planets, and solve the mystery of dark energy.

Chromoscope lets you explore our Galaxy (the Milky Way) and the distant Universe in a range of wavelengths from gamma-rays to the longest radio waves.

This dataset consists of a conversion of the NASA NSSDC Master Catalog and extracts of the Apollo By Numbers statistics.

"VIRTUAL PLANETARY LABORATORY"

In our Universe, a black hole is bounded by a spherical surface called an event horizon. Whereas in ordinary three-dimensional space it takes a two-dimensional object (a surface) to create a boundary inside a black hole, in the bulk universe the event horizon of a 4D black hole would be a 3D object - a shape called a hypersphere. When Afshordi's team modelled the death of a 4D star, they found that the ejected material would form a 3D brane surrounding that 3D event horizon, and slowly expand. The authors postulate that the 3D Universe we live in might be just such a brane - and that we detect the brane's growth as cosmic expansion. "Astronomers measured that expansion and extrapolated back that the Universe must have begun with a Big Bang - but that is just a mirage," says Afshordi.

Hunting for the elusive neutrino typically involves treks to Antarctica, the Mediterranean, and Lake Baikal. But a growing number of projects are looking for the most energetic neutrinos by aiming radio telescopes at the moon.

Infrared photos of a few extrasolar planets. Don't expect much - you just see points of light - but they've been imaged in Infrared light.

Find out if any upcoming solar storms are approaching.

It's a cute graphic, but not much more than that. You move the cursor and the simulated night sky moves in response - and it's a great example of how the Internet can take us in the wrong direction. Do you remember kids getting books and ... gasp ... going outdoors at night, looking upward and finding those constellations, instead of searching for them on an animation?

Information for those thinking of buying a home telescope

The seasonal ice cap at the South Pole (the one made of dry ice) is evaporating as Astronomers at the University of Arizona watch. A brief discussion of the geology that results.

A team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology, Princeton, Drexel University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed the first professional scientific organization based entirely in virtual worlds. Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA) conducts professional seminars and popular lectures, among other events, for its growing membership.

Ten years ago today, NASA launched the Chandra X-Ray Observatory aboard the space shuttle Columbia. And it has provided stunning images from the high-energy