In a simulated merger, astrophysicists tried to push the boundaries of two black holes into shedding their event horizons. But the resulting black hole was still shrouded by its event horizon, through which even light can’t escape.

As mission nears end, Phoenix Mars Lander finds strong evidence for minerals similar to those formed on Earth by liquid water.

Updated September 30: After the orbiting observatory suddenly stopped transmitting data, NASA announced planned repair mission will be delayed at least until early next year

Neutrino beams may turn Cepheids into messengers for advanced alien civilizations. (p. 5)

Scientists discover "dark flow" -- the unexplained streaming of galactic clusters across the universe.

The stony meteorite that landed in a remote portion of Peru in September 2007 was traveling abnormally fast when it struck and blasted a crater that was unusually large for the its size, new analyses indicate.

Physicists manipulated a microwave pulse and could essentially watch it transition from a quantum state into the realm of classical physics.

The current solar minimum is the lowest — and one of the longest — recorded in the past 50 years, since modern measurements began.

Saturn's rings might be more massive, and thus older, than researchers had believed.

One short trip for a proton, one not-so-giant step for mankind, it turns out. On September 10 scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, near Geneva, successfully steered the first beam of protons around the accelerator’s 27-kilometer circular track. After entering the tunnel, the beam twice struck a scintillating screen, causing atoms in the screen to emit light. The first yellow spot in the screen grab at left was created just after the protons were kicked onto the correct trajectory by the injection system. The second spot was generated after the protons made one complete revolution, again ... (p. 8)

With solid findings under its belt and the Martian summer waning, the Phoenix Mars lander perseveres in its study of the soil and sky of the planet’s arctic plain.