(NASA) Stargazers, Take Note is in the northern sky and can be seen with the naked eye … at least for now. The comet is set to be at its brightest in the Northern Hemisphere on Sunday when it makes its closest approach to the sun. already made its closest brush with Earth Tuesday when it passed about 102 million miles away from the planet. (ALSO: ) Click ahead for 6 interesting facts to keep in mind when you look...

The 460-foot asteroid 2013 ET is seen through a Slooh Space Camera telescope in the Canary Islands on March 9, 2013, during its close approach to Earth. The asteroid was just within 600,000 miles of Earth. (Slooh Space Camera) In the last seven days, an asteroid 131 feet across and three smaller space rocks have zoomed safely by Earth, the latest demonstration that we live in a solar system that some scientists have dubbed a "cosmic shooting gallery." All four...

In this Sunday, March 10, 2013 photo taken with a 600-millimeter telephoto lens, comet Pan-STARRS appears between the clouds low in the western sky as seen from Harrells, N.C. (AP Photo/The Fayetteville Observer, Johnny Horne) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Now's your chance to see the comet that passed within 100 million miles of Earth last week. Twilight on Tuesday will provide the best photo op for the comet called Pan-STARRS. It will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere just above...

The Herschel infrared observatory has an unprecedented view on the cold universe, bridging the gap between what can be observed from the ground and earlier infrared space missions, and bringing to light previously unseen star-forming regions and galaxies enshrouded in dust. (ESA - C. Carreau) The largest infrared telescope ever launched into space is almost at the end of its cosmic life, European Space Agency officials say. After nearly four years mapping the cosmos, ESA's prolific is expected to exhaust...

A Huge Project Comes to Life (ESO/B. Tafreshi) The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the world's most powerful observatory for studying the universe at the long-wavelength millimeter and submillimeter range of light. It's designed to spot some of the most distant, ancient galaxies ever seen, and to probe the areas around young stars for planets in the process of forming. The opening of the $1.3 billion telescope array is being celebrated in an inauguration ceremony on Wednesday (March 13)...

It's official: Primitive life could have lived on ancient Mars, NASA says. A sample of Mars drilled from a rock by NASA's and then studied by onboard instruments "shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes," NASA officials announced today (March 12) in a statement and press conference. (MORE: ) The discovery comes just seven months after Curiosity landed on to spend at least two years determining if the planet could ever have hosted primitive life. To be clear, the...

Admit it. You held your breath a little on Dec. 21, 2012 -- the most recent day marked as the "end of the world." (PHOTOS: Meteor Explodes Over Russian Skies) The world, of course, did not end, but 2013 has seen its share of "what if" scenarios. From a meteorite breaking apart over western Russia to earth's closest call with an asteroid yet, the new year has only escalated the fervor surrounding end of days prophecy. But the end to...

Tucson, Ariz. The comet Pan-STARRS splits the gap between two cacti on the night of March 14, 2013. (Facebook/Pete Gregoire) Twilight on Tuesday provided the best photo op for the comet called Pan-STARRS. It was visible in the Northern Hemisphere just above the western horizon – right next to the crescent moon. Last Tuesday, Pan-STARRS made its closest approach ever of Earth. It will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere for weeks to come. The comet's name is actually an...

Pluto (center) surrounded by three of its known moons. (NASA) A flotilla of 10 or more tiny undiscovered moons might lurk in Pluto's orbit, complicating a spacecraft's planned flyby of the distant dwarf planet in 2015, new simulations suggest. This preliminary finding could make life even more difficult for the team planning NASA's New Horizons mission, which is slated to take the first-ever up-close look at the Pluto system in July 2015. After Pluto's fifth known moon, a small satellite...

ESA and NASA’s Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured this image of a coronal mass ejection bursting off the leftside of the image at 9:25 p.m. EDT on March 12, 2013. This sun itself is obscured in this image. (ESA&NASA/SOHO) An explosion off the sun is speeding towards three NASA spacecraft. NASA says not one, but two, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) went between Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. Particles from the first CME are headed in the direction of NASA's...

Russian cosmonauts, Pavel Vinogradov (back C), Alexander Misurkin (back L), and US astronaut Christopher Cassidy (back R) put on shoe covers over their space suit boots in front of a mock-up of a Soyuz TMA space craft at the cosmonaut training centre in Star City, outside Moscow on March 5, 2013, before taking their pre-flight exam. The return of several other astronauts from the ISS is being delayed due to bad weather. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images) MOSCOW -- Bad weather is...

In this handout image provided by NASA and released on August 9, 2012, a color image from NASA's Curiosity Rover shows the pebble-covered surface of Mars. (Getty Images/NASA) MOSCOW - Europe and Russia signed a deal on Thursday for a joint Mars mission which will bore beneath the Red Planet's surface for soil samples they hope will solve the mystery of whether there is life beyond Earth. Europe's space agency had hoped to work with NASA on the two-spacecraft ExoMars...