All Stories by Nadia Drake
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Lopped Off
In July, the Ecuadorean navy helped apprehend a fishing vessel within the waters of the Galápagos National Park. On board lay the carcasses of 379 sharks — including threshers, hammerheads, Galápagos, blues and a mako. Nearly severed fins hung from the mutilated, slippery bodies. The fins were presumably destined for trade in Asian markets, where […]
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Space
HiRISE clocks hurricane-speed winds on Mars
Orbiting camera measures swirling gusts in dust devils.
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Space
Saturn’s rings tell a comet’s tale
Ripples made by a celestial impact 600 years ago can still be seen today.
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Astronomy
A Shadowed Past
Suspended in the sky, the moon has stared unblinking at the Earth for billions of years. But new work suggests the placid sphere’s two faces may belie a violent childhood — one that involved the death of a small celestial companion. The moon may also be lying about when it was born, by millions of […]
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Space
Miniplanet sports megapeak
The solar system’s second tallest mountain hides out in a crater at the south pole of the asteroid Vesta.
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Space
Longer cosmic ruler based on black holes
A new method promises to improve the precision of extreme astronomical distance measurements.
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Space
Messenger from Mercury
NASA orbiter returns images of odd landforms on the solar system's innermost planet.
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Planetary Science
Fertile Frontiers
The solar system’s spotted bully and its ringed sidekick are holding some tantalizing treasures in their gravitational clutches. Circling Jupiter and Saturn are more than a hundred moons, including some of the most promising hosts for extraterrestrial life in the solar system. Some scientists rank the Saturnian moon Enceladus as the best place in the […]
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Space
On Kepler-16b, shadows come in pairs
Astronomers discover a planet that orbits a pair of stars.
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Space
Planet search finds lots of little guys
The latest collection of extrasolar bodies to be revealed is rich in worlds not much bigger than Earth.
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Space
Super-Earths may come in two flavors
As more exoplanets are discovered, evidence emerges that worlds can be either fluffy or dense.
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Astronomy
Star goes boom, telescopes zoom
Astronomers have spotted a supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy, the nearest such stellar explosion in decades.