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Contents
- Mystery Meteorite: The case for (and against) a rock from Mercury
- Hard Times for Theorists in a Post-Higgs World: The Large Hadron Collider’s big success leaves no clear avenue for new physics
- In the Eye of the Tiger: Global spread of Asian tiger mosquito could fuel outbreaks of tropical disease in temperate regions
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Read articles, including Science News stories written for ages 9-14, on the
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Contents
- Cool Jobs: Moved by life: Biologically inspired robots travel — naturally
- Infection time: Disease is more severe when it hits in the morning, at least in mice
- Explainer: Our bodies’ internal clocks: Biological clocks determine hunger, sleepiness and other daily rhythms
Planetary Science
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Phoenix Mars Lander drills for ice.
NASA/JPL-Caltech, University of Arizona, Texas A&M University
- Three teams suggest that a huge object slammed into Mars, giving the planet an unusually dualistic topography.
- Scientists find an odd mineral that could offer clues to the solar system's origins.
- Phoenix Lander gets first close-up of Martian soil.
- Instrument succeeds in capturing first soil sample, allowing Mars Phoenix Lander team to begin scientific studies.
- New photos of collisions in one of Saturn’s rings provide a local lab for understanding the interactions that might shape young solar system formation.
- Astronomers have discovered the smallest planet known that is beyond the solar system and orbits an ordinary parent body.
- In its seventh day after successfully landing on the Red Planet, the Phoenix Lander digs its first trench and is ready to start its ice-hunting.
- The good news is a tentative sighting of ice by the Mars Phoenix Lander. The bad news is the discovery of a glitch in the system that will analyze soil samples.
- After a day’s delay, the robotic arm on the Mars Phoenix Lander is free of its shackles and is preparing to dig for ice.
- Water believed to flow on the Red Planet would have been too salty to foster life, scientists suggest.
- A camera on a Mars-orbiting spacecraft caught an image of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute just before it descended onto the Red Planet’s northern plains on May 25.
- The first close-up color images of the northern arctic circle on the Red Planet were recorded by the Mars Phoenix Lander spacecraft only a few hours after its flawless descent at 7:38 p.m. EDT, May 25. The detailed images suggest ice lies beneath the hard soil.
- Less gravity on Mars means wind-driven grains of sand travel up to 10 times faster than those blowing along Earth’s surface, new analyses suggest.
- Astronomers, for the first time, have imaged dusty clumps surrounding young stars that could be planets in the making.
- NASA's Cassini spacecraft had a close encounter with the giant vapor plume gushing from Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus.
- Observations by the Cassini spacecraft hint that Saturn's smog-shrouded moon Titan may harbor a global ocean of water and ammonia 100 kilometers below its surface.
- A new study suggests that many, or perhaps most, sunlike stars have planets much like Earth.
- A new infrared portrait of an embryonic sunlike star reveals an early, crucial step in the process of planet formation.
- The Venus Express probe has found evidence that Venus once had more water than it does today, and has provided new measurements of the weather on Venus, proof of lightning on the planet, and signs of a formerly unknown hot spot near its south pole.
- An immense volume of ice-rich material may underlie a formation that extends about one-quarter of the way around Mars' equator.
- An ultrasharp image of part of Mars' Gale crater shows waterborne sediments and volcanic ash.
- A newly assembled mosaic of radar images of Saturn's moon Titan shows what appear to be hydrocarbon lakes and seas.
- Three months after being stymied by a planet-wide dust storm, NASA's twin Mars rovers are back in action.
- Neptune's south pole is about 10°C warmer than any other place on the planet.
- New images of Mars diminish the evidence that liquid water has flowed on some parts of the planet, but bolster the case in other places.
- An extrasolar planet survived after its aging parent star ballooned into a red giant that almost engulfed it.
- The rings of Uranus are now tilted edge on to Earth, revealing small, inner rings made of fine dust.
- The Cassini spacecraft will change course to take a close look next March at plumes of water vapor emanating from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
- The strange appearance of Saturn's moon Iapetus suggests that it was frozen in shape soon after birth, providing a glimpse into conditions in the early solar system.
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With everyday materials, two research teams conceal ordinary objects
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Not to miss
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Coverage of the 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting
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The Year in Science 2012
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Three-part series on the scientific struggle to explain the conscious self
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Tables of contents, columns and FAQs on SN Prime for iPad
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By Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez
Review by Janet Raloff
