Daniel Down
Recent articles by Daniel Down

The Sky at Night 55, The Moore Marathon
Celebrate 55 years of The Sky at Night by observing 55 objects in April

Earthshine used to discover life on Earth
The method paves the way for life to be detected on exoplanets

Rare meteorite could hold Mars clues
The sample of space rock is the largest Tissint fragment recovered

Video from the far side of the Moon
Footage of the far side of the Moon has been captured by NASA's GRAIl spacecraft.

Dark matter galaxy discovered
Find may shed more light on nature of dark matter

Remembering Apollo 1
Tragedy struck the Apollo programme early on – but vital lessons were learned

Kepler needs you!
New data made available to Planethunters volunteers

Three smallest exoplanets yet discovered
New find suggests Earth-like planets may be commonplace in the Galaxy

Dark matter mapped in detail
New survey reveals more about the distribution of the mysterious substance

Twin GRAIL craft reach lunar orbit
Moon-mapping satellites nearly ready to go to work

Stunning new Cassini images of Saturn's moons
NASA has a Xmas treat for us all

Tiny exoplanets spotted orbiting dying star
Believed to be remnants of gas giants consumed by red giant star earlier

Kepler finds first Earth-sized exoplanets
But search for a true ‘Earth twin’ continues

The end is near for Comet Lovejoy
'Sungrazer' comet to meet a fiery, Icarus-like death tonight

Cassini returns new images of Dione
New images of Saturn's moon captured by Cassini spacecraft

Milky Way’s black hole set to eat giant gas cloud
Astronomers will watch the feast in real time

Next-gen Mars rovers to become autonomous
Scientists collaborate on new rovers that will make navigation decisions for themselves

Further evidence of Mars's wet past
Opportunity finds seam of water-deposited calcium sulphate

Secrets of the vampire star
VLT telescopes offer clearer picture of transfer of matter from one star in a double system to another

Fastest-rotating star discovered by VLT
Very Large Telescope finds a star that's spinning round at over 2 million kilometres per hour

First 'Goldilocks' Kepler planet confirmed
New planet is the first identified by Kepler in its star's 'Goldilocks' zone

NASA releases 3D video of asteroid Vesta
New video created using images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft

Christmas gamma-ray mystery
Two teams of scientists develop two different theories to explain 2010's remarkable cosmic event

Levy logbooks available online
The famous amateur astronomer and discoverer of comets makes 50 years' worth of observing notes available to the public