Kepler experienced a safe mode event on February 2, 2010. A safe mode is a self-protective measure that the spacecraft takes when something unexpected occurs. During safe mode, the spacecraft points the solar panels directly at the sun and begins to slowly rotate about a sun-aligned axis. As a safety precaution, the spacecraft turned off a redundant system, photometer, and both star trackers.

Engineers immediately began telemetry analysis to determine the spacecraft's subsystem health, and cause of the malfunction. Initial telemetry analysis indicated errant data from the star trackers, which caused the spacecraft's fault protection software to execute a safe mode.

Scientists working on the Cassini space mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus.

Their findings, based on analysis from data taken in plume fly-throughs in 2008 and reported in the journal Icarus, provide evidence for the presence of liquid water, which suggests the ingredients for life inside the icy moon. The Cassini plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons.

Opportunity has arrived at "Concepcion," a very young 10-meter (33-foot) diameter crater.

On Sol 2138 (Jan. 28, 2010), Opportunity completed a 12-meter (39-foot) approach to the crater. After a few sols of careful imaging in and around the crater, Opportunity drove about 9 meters (30 feet) around the crater to approach some ejecta blocks that might be suitable for further in-situ (contact) investigation by all the instruments on the end of the robotic arm (instrument deployment device, or IDD).

The following featured images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) are now available:

• Plato Crater Constellation Region of Interest (Released 2 February 2010)
  The Constellation Program region of interest northwest of Plato crater exhibits a wide variety of geologic features.
• Out of the Shadows: Impact Melt Flow at Byrgius A Crater (Released 2 February 2010)
  Spectacularly preserved viscous flow on the NE rim of Byrgius A (19 km diameter) crater.
• Riccioli Crater: Cracked, Melted, and Draped (Released 4 February 2010)
  High-resolution LROC view of part of the floor of Riccioli Crater, near the center of the Constellation region of interest.

The following new images taken by the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) on the Cassini spacecraft are now available:

• Eyeing Iapetus (Released 1 February 2010)
  The Cassini spacecraft looks toward a crescent of Saturn's dark and light moon, Iapetus.
• Spoke/Shadow Combo (Released 2 February 2010)
  Bright spokes grace the B ring in this image which also includes the shadow of the moon Mimas and was taken about a month after Saturn's August 2009 equinox.
• Rugged Mimas (Released 3 February 2010)
  The oblate moon Mimas displays the cratered surface of its anti-Saturn side.
• Swirling Clouds (Released 4 February 2010)
  The Cassini spacecraft watches as clouds swirl through Saturn's equatorial latitudes.
• Color Between Moons (Released 5 February 2010)
  Two of Saturn's moons straddle the planet's rings in this color view.

The following new images taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft are now available:

• Proctor Crater Dunes (Released 1 February 2010)
  This VIS image of the floor of Proctor Crater shows part of the sand sheet and dune forms that are located there.
• Arkhangelsky Crater (Released 2 February 2010)
  This VIS image shows part of the floor of Arkhangelsky Crater.
• Lycus Sulci (Released 3 February 2010)
  Dark slope streaks are found throughout Lycus Sulci.
• Patapsco Vallis (Released 4 February 2010)
  This VIS image shows a portion of Patapsco Vallis, a channel located on the eastern margin of Elysium Mons.
• Coprates Chasma (Released 5 February 2010)
  The floor of Coprates Chasma contains many different geologic landforms.

NASA has released the most detailed and dramatic images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images from the Hubble Space Telescope show an icy, mottled, dark molasses-colored world undergoing seasonal surface color and brightness changes.

Pluto has become significantly redder, while its illuminated northern hemisphere is getting brighter. These changes are most likely consequences of surface ice melting on the sunlit pole and then refreezing on the other pole, as the dwarf planet heads into the next phase of its 248-year-long seasonal cycle. Analysis shows the dramatic change in color took place from 2000 to 2002.

Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have, for the first time, created a demographic census of galaxy types and shapes from a time before the Earth and the Sun existed, to the present day.

The results show that, contrary to contemporary thought, more than half of the present-day spiral galaxies had so-called peculiar shapes only 6 billion years ago, which, if confirmed, highlights the importance of collisions and mergers in the recent past of many galaxies. It also provides clues for the unique status of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Astronomers have found the first clear evidence of a binary quasar within a pair of actively merging galaxies. Quasars are the extremely bright centers of galaxies surrounding super-massive black holes, and binary quasars are pairs of quasars bound together by gravity. Binary quasars, like other quasars, are thought to be the product of galaxy mergers.

Until now, however, binary quasars have not been seen in galaxies that are unambiguously in the act of merging. But images of a new binary quasar from the Carnegie Institution's Magellan telescope in Chile show two distinct galaxies with "tails" produced by tidal forces from their mutual gravitational attraction.

The following new captioned and spotlight images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft are now available:

• Central Uplifted Region of Crater in Phlegra Dorsa
  This image covers part of the central uplifted region of an unnamed crater in Phlegra Dorsa.
• Mojave Crater Floor and Central Uplift
  This observation shows a portion of the central uplift structure in Mojave Crater.
• Frost Patch and Dunes in a Northern Hemisphere Crater
  The bottom half of this observation shows a portion of a frost patch on a mound inside a northern hemisphere crater.
• Layered Deposits in Terby Crater
  Terby Crater is a large (approximately 165 kilometer), Noachian-aged crater located on the northern rim of the Hellas impact basin.
• Frost-Covered Dunes in the North Polar Region
  This image shows dunes on the northern plains of Mars, and appears similar to images taken when the surface was covered by frost.

NASA will extend the international Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn and its moons to 2017. The agency's fiscal year 2011 budget provides a $60 million per year extension for continued study of the ringed planet.

"This is a mission that never stops providing us surprising scientific results and showing us eye popping new vistas," said Jim Green, director of NASA's planetary science division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The historic traveler's stunning discoveries and images have revolutionized our knowledge of Saturn and its moons."

The Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera has imaged craters both young and old in this view of the Southern Highlands of Mars.

Part of the Sirenum Fossae region in the Southern Highlands, the area in this image is centred at about 28°S / 185°E. The image captures an area to the north of the Magelhaens Crater. It extends some 230 km by 127 km and covers about 29 450 sq km, roughly the size of Belgium. The image resolution is approximately 29 metres per pixel.

The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought that the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never before been seen.

The comet-like object imaged by Hubble, called P/2010 A2, was first discovered by the LINEAR (Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program) sky survey on January 6. New Hubble images taken on January 25 and 29 show a complex X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus.

Images from the latest vulcanoid search are currently being transmitted to Earth, and one of those 256 images is shown here. Vulcanoids are small rocky bodies that have been postulated to exist in orbits between Mercury and the Sun, though no such object has yet been detected.

MESSENGER has the unique opportunity to search for smaller and fainter vulcanoids than has ever before been possible. The best opportunities for MESSENGER to search for vulcanoids are during perihelion passages, when the spacecraft's orbit brings it closest to the Sun.

Opportunity has been driving towards "Concepcion," a 10-meter (33-foot) diameter crater to the south of Marquette Island.

Concepcion crater is assessed to be geologically very young with visible rays of ejecta radiating from the center of the crater. The Sol 2136 (Jan. 26, 2010), imagery shows many fragments of ejecta on the surface all around the crater. Opportunity is currently 20 meters (66 feet) north of the crater's rim.