Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
The moon might have had a heavy metal atmosphere with supersonic winds
Heat from a glowing infant Earth could have vaporized the moon’s metals into an atmosphere as thick as Mars’, a new simulation shows.
- Tech
Gecko-inspired robot grippers could grab hold of space junk
Aboard a microgravity plane, NASA is testing gecko-inspired grippers that one day could help clear up space junk.
- Astronomy
Satellite trio will hunt gravitational waves from space
The European Space Agency has green-lighted the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, expected to launch in 2034.
- Astronomy
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.
- Astronomy
Eclipse watchers catch part of the sun’s surface fleeing to space
A serendipitous eruption during a solar eclipse showed relatively cool blobs of plasma, wrapped in a million-degree flame, streaming from the sun.
- Planetary Science
See the latest stunning views of Jupiter
Once every 53 days, NASA’s Juno spacecraft zooms past Jupiter’s cloud tops. A new sequence of images reveals the encounter from Juno’s viewpoint.
- Astronomy
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.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s precocious birth happened in the solar system’s first million years
Jupiter formed within the first million years of the solar system, according to meteorite measurements.
- Cosmology
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.
- Astronomy
Einstein’s light-bending by single far-off star detected
A measurement so precise Einstein thought it couldn't be done has demonstrated his most famous theory on a star outside the solar system for the first time.
- Astronomy
Scalding hot gas giant breaks heat records
KELT 9b’s sun blasts it with so much radiation that the planet’s dayside is hotter than most stars and its atmosphere is being stripped away.
- Physics
LIGO snags another set of gravitational waves
Two black holes stirred up the third set of gravitational waves ever detected.
