The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is set to launch from Florida no earlier than 10:30 a.m. EST on Feb. 9, on an unprecedented mission to study the sun and its dynamic behavior.

Onboard telescopes will scrutinize sunspots and solar flares using more pixels and colors than any other observatory in the history of solar physics. And SDO will reveal the sun’s hidden secrets in a prodigious rush of pictures.

WASHINGTON – The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the earliest image yet of the universe — just 600 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was just a toddler.

Scientists released the photo Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It's the most complete picture of the early universe so far, showing galaxies with stars that are already hundreds of millions of years old, along with the unmistakable primordial signs of the first cluster of stars.

These young galaxies haven't yet formed their familiar spiral or elliptical shapes and are much smaller and quite blue in color. That's mostly because at this stage, they don't contain many heavy metals, said Garth Illingworth, a University of California, Santa Cruz, astronomy professor who was among those releasing the photo.

Read more here.

Stargazer's Planet has been around for the better part of 8 years. We went from being a simple personal web page to a semi-serious software review forum to an Astronomy and Space news portal. Now it's time for me to start posting articles on my own experiences and views on the space sciences. I have been an amateur astronomer and amateur physicist for 20 years (more seriously in the last ten), and since I started I have learned a great deal about the universe in which we live, and how we perceive it.

Now that we have become a popular stop for those in the science know, let's start some discussion and debate on the theories and laws that make the sciences so interesting. I will be gathering information and subjects for posting. If this change goes well, I will also add a discussion forum with categories ranging from Astronomy to Zoology.

So keep an eye out in the next few days, and join in the debate!

Holiday Sky Treat: Spot the Shuttle and Space Station

Reuters – A handout photo released by NASA shows the space shuttle

Atlantis over the Mediterranean Sea, near the …

• Slideshow:Space Shuttle
• Play Video Video:Baby born while astronaut dad spacewalks AP
• Play Video Video:Baby Born While Dad's in Space ABC News

The space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station are separately flying around the Earth until Friday, and they can be seen as a pair of bright lights in the sky at certain times over the next few days.

Weather permitting, the orbiting objects should be visible to the naked eye throughout the United States and Canada, according to SpaceWeather.com. It's a special opportunity to see the two largest man-made objects in the sky at once.

Atlantis undocked from the space station early Wednesday, ending a week-long stay to supply the outpost with spare parts. The shuttle is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Friday morning at 9:44 a.m. EST (1444 GMT).

Several sites can tell you when the two spacecraft are visible from your location between now and landing day:

• Chris Peat's Heavens Above
• Spaceweather.com
• NASA's SkyWatch

Seeing a satellite from Earth isn't that rare: The myriad communications satellites flying around Earth regularly appear at night as stars that look to be transiting across the heavens. But the shuttle and station are both larger than any other vehicle in orbit, and should appear much brighter than the average satellite.

On a good night, the station approaches magnitude -5 in brightness, which rivals the planet Venus and is more than 25 times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

• How to Spot Satellites
• Gallery: Shuttle's Midnight Launch
• Complete Shuttle Coverage

• Original Story: Holiday Sky Treat: Spot the Shuttle and Space Station