PUFFED UP Early in its development, a rocky planet may turn into a synestia (illustrated), a spinning disk of vaporized rock that looks like a jelly-filled doughnut with a small, solid core (gray).
S. Lock/Harvard Univ.
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Magazine
In the July 8 SN: DNA traces many roads to domestication, seeking quantum supremacy, the 25th anniversary of the qubit, bones’ secret messages, how monkeys see faces, redating Homo sapiens, a record-breaking gas giant, strange dragonfly wings and more.
Atom & Cosmos
Topic Image Rail
LYING IN WAIT The New Horizons team spread 24 of these small telescopes around southern Argentina to catch a cosmic coincidence.
SwRI/JHUAPL/NASA
MUDDY OCEAN? The dwarf planet Ceres could have once been a ball of mud with a solid core, a new model suggests.
IDA/DLR/MPS/UCLA/JPL-Caltech/NASA
Atom & Cosmos
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Astronomy
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Cosmology
News in Brief
Milky Way’s loner status is upheld
Galaxy surveys show the Milky Way lives in a vast cosmic void, which could help ease tensions between ways of measuring how fast the universe is expanding.News in Brief
New data fuel debate on universe’s expansion rate
Quasar observations add to discrepancy in measurements of the universe’s expansion speed. -
Planetary Science
Say What?
Earth might once have resembled a hot, steamy doughnut
Newly proposed space objects called synestias are large, spinning hunks of mostly vaporized rock. They look like a jelly-filled doughnut.Science TickerNew Horizons’ next target caught making a star blink
The team behind the spacecraft that visited Pluto has seen its next quarry blocking the light from a distant star. -
Particle Physics
News in Brief
Newfound particle relies on its charm(s)
First-of-its-kind subatomic particle is composed of two charm quarks and an up quark.Letters to the EditorReaders puzzled by proton's properties
Readers sent feedback on under-ice greenhouses in the Arctic, the Martian atmosphere and more. -
Exoplanets
News
Kepler shows small exoplanets are either super-Earths or mini-Neptunes
The final catalog from the Kepler space telescope splits Earthlike exoplanets into two groups and pinpoints 10 new rocky planets in the habitable zone.Feature
Life might have a shot on planets orbiting dim red stars
The number of planets in the habitable zone of dim red suns, known as M dwarfs, is growing. They’re a good place to look for life. -
Astrobiology
Letters to the EditorReaders weigh in on ET and the meaning of life
All about aliensNew telescopes and spacecraft will soon help researchers scour our galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. But what might aliens look like? And if they do exist, why haven’t they returned our calls? These are just some of the questions addressed in the Science News special report “In Search of Aliens” (SN: 4/30/16, p. 24).
Editor's NoteTrying to find ET and our place in the universe
Editor in Chief discusses the search for life beyond Earth.
