Space News Archive - April 02, 2012

A NASA satellite has captured images of a solar tornado that is said to be five times as wide as Earth and one of the largest such structures ever discovered on our sun.

A new X-ray study of the remains of an exploded star indicates that the supernova that disrupted the massive star may have turned it inside out in the process.

NASA's Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds. Recent finds include planets with double suns, massive "super-Earths" and "hot Jupiters," and a miniature solar system.

IBM announced that it has won a $42 million contract to work with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy to research a new line of super-fast computers that will be needed for the Square Kilometer Array to perform the most exhaustive search of the origins of the universe seen to date.