Monday night’s lunar eclipse proved just as delightful as expected to those able to view it. On the East Coast, cloudy skies may have gotten in the way, but at the National Science Foundation’s National Optical Astronomy Observatory near Tucson, Ariz., the skies offered impressive viewing. Via: Red moon at night: Stargazer’s delight

Geologists analyzed 40 meteorites that fell to Earth from Mars to understand the history of the Martian atmosphere. Their new article shows the atmospheres of Mars and Earth diverged in important ways early in the solar system’s 4.6 billion year evolution. Via: Mars: Meteorites yield clues to Red Planet’s early atmosphere

An area of the southern sky, in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), is home to many bright nebulae, each associated with hot newborn stars that formed out of the clouds of hydrogen gas. The intense radiation from the stellar newborns excites the remaining hydrogen around them, making the gas glow in the distinctive shade of red typical of star-forming regions. Via: A study in scarlet: Hot newborn stars formed out of the clouds

A fluctuating tilt in a planet’s orbit does not preclude the possibility of life, according to new research. In fact, sometimes it may help. That’s because such “tilt-a-worlds,” as astronomers sometimes call them — turned from their orbital plane by the influence of companion planets — are less likely than fixed-spin planets to freeze over, as heat from their host star is more evenly distributed. Via: Astronomers: ‘Tilt-a-worlds’ could harbor life

Monday’s launch attempt of the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, loaded with nearly 5,000 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station’s Expedition 39 crew, was scrubbed due to a helium leak on the Falcon 9 first stage. The next launch opportunity would be Friday, April 18 at 3:25 p.m. EDT if the issue can be resolved. Via: Dragon cargo craft launch scrubbed; Station crew preps for spacewalk

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has documented the formation of a small icy object within the rings of Saturn that may be a new moon, and may also provide clues to the formation of the planet’s known moons. Via: NASA Cassini images may reveal birth of a Saturn moon

A ‘tidal disruption’ occurs when a star orbits too close to a black hole and gets usurped. Researchers are using supercomputers to simulate tidal disruptions to better understand the dynamics of the process. Doing so will help astronomers find many more possible candidates of tidal disruptions in sky surveys and reveal details of how stars and black holes interact. Via: Cosmic slurp: Supercomputers help astronomers understand and predict how black holes swallow stars

“Enter the Dragon” takes on a whole new meaning this month as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule heads to the International Space Station for its third commercial resupply mission on April 14. During the SpaceX-3 mission, the Dragon capsule not only will deliver cargo to the orbiting laboratory, but it also will return science samples and hardware to Earth. Via: SpaceX’s Dragon headed to space station to create astronaut farmers

A team of about 20 working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., through the lab’s Phaeton early-career-hire program, led the development of the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) investigation, which is preparing for an April 14 launch to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX-3 mission. The goal? NASA’s first optical communication experiment on the orbital laboratory. Via: International Space Station to beam video via laser back to Earth

A biology professor’s experiment that is set to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) could shed new light on the roles enzymes play in biological processes. The experiment, Protein Crystals for Neutron Crystallography (PC4NC), studies an enzyme inorganic pyrophosphatase (IPPase). Via: Protein crystal experiment set to fly to International Space Station