After a long hiatus, astronomy news is beginning to pick up again. If anyone remembers a comet named  Elenin (C/2010 X1), which was widely known for inaccurate reports of its threat to Earth, well there's no need for worry anymore. The comet appears to be breaking apart. Observations by amateur astronomer Michael Mattiazzo of Castlemaine, Australia show a marked dimming and elongation of the comet's nucleus over a ten day period:

The behavior of Comet Elenin is akin to that of Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4), which disintegrated
when it approached the sun in back in 2000. Mattiazzo witnessed that event, too.

Comets are fragile objects, easily disrupted by solar heat. As a result, the possible breakup of Comet Elenin, while unexpected, comes as no surprise.

Jupiter-Bound Space Probe Photographs Earth and Moon

On its way to the biggest planet in the solar system - Jupiter, NASA's
Juno spacecraft took time to look back, and photograph its home planet and its natural satellite - the moon. 

The image was taken by the spacecraft’s camera, JunoCam, on Aug. 26 when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles away. Juno covered the distance from Earth to the moon (about 250,000 miles) in less than one day's time. It will take the spacecraft another five years and 1,740 million miles to complete the journey to Jupiter.

This image of Earth (on the left) and the moon (on the right) was taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2011, when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million kilometers) away. It was taken by the spacecraft's onboard camera,
JunoCam. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech 

 An Icy Visitor

As September begins, green Comet Garradd is gliding across the star fields of the Milky Way in the early evening sky. The icy visitor from tthe outer solar system is not yet visible to the naked eye, but it looks great through amateur telescopes.

Image credit: Maximilian Teodorescu - Comana, Romania

At the moment, Comet Garradd is a purely telescopic object. It is, however, approaching the sun and
brightening. Recent projections place it at peak magnitude 6, on the threshold of naked-eye visibility, in February 2012. Because Comet Garradd is a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, it could behave in unexpected ways, perhaps exceeding those expectations.