Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
Pluto may have spots the size of Missouri
Dark spots emerge on the surface of Pluto in recent images from the New Horizons spacecraft.
- Life
Puzzling cosmic signals, processed food defined and more reader feedback
Readers sort out a definition for processed food, discuss the benefits of tinkering with human DNA and more.
- Astronomy
A loopy look at sunspots
In visible light, sunspots look like dark blotches that often expel flares of searing plasma. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory offers a different view.
- Physics
In retirement, Nobelist takes up moon bouncing
A lifelong amateur radio enthusiast, Joseph Taylor sends signals via the moon.
- Astronomy
Super-Earths are not a good place for plate tectonics
The intense pressures inside super-Earths make plate tectonics less likely, new research suggests.
- Astronomy
Advice to a baby planet: Avoid black holes
A dust cloud looping around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole might have once been an infant planet.
- Astronomy
X-ray rings reveal neutron star’s distance
Concentric X-ray rings around a neutron star help astronomers triangulate the star’s distance.
- Planetary Science
50 years ago, Mariner 4 sent back first pictures from Mars
On July 14, 1965, Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to fly by Mars. The probe also sent back the first pictures of another planet taken from space.
- Astronomy
Dark galaxies grow in abundance
Nearly 1,000 shadowy galaxies lurk in a nearby cluster, some of which are as massive as the Milky Way and yet have only 0.1 percent the number of stars.
- Planetary Science
Rosetta mission extended until September 2016
The Rosetta spacecraft will explore comet 67P through September 2016 and then may go to sleep on the comet’s surface.
- Astronomy
Magnetic ‘glue’ helps shape galaxies
Galaxy-wide magnetic fields may play a role in shaping the spiral arms of gas and stars.
- Planetary Science
Pluto and Charon’s orbital dance captured in color
New Horizons has captured the first true-color movie of Pluto and Charon orbiting one another.
