Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
NASA’s Orion spacecraft has flawless first test flight
NASA’s new vehicle for human exploration of deep space has successfully completed its first unmanned test flight.
- Planetary Science
Ancient moon’s mega magnetic field explained
Apollo-era moon rocks reveal ancient lunar magnetic field was at least as powerful as the one surrounding modern Earth.
- Planetary Science
Preparing for disaster, celebrating success
Science cannot prevent all disasters or solve all the problems they spawn, but it can point to the best ways to prepare, making disasters less damaging than they might otherwise be
- Astronomy
Starlight robs galaxy of stellar ingredients
Light from newborn stars drives gas out of a distant galaxy, a process that may prevent future stars from being born.
- Cosmology
Most precise snapshot of the universe unveiled
New results from the Planck satellite provide the most detailed look yet of the makeup of the universe.
- Planetary Science
Comet lander’s exploration cut short
The comet lander Philae made history with its touchdown on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, but a series of small hiccups prevented the robot from recharging its batteries, giving it only about 57 hours to explore the alien world.
- Physics
Negative mass might not defy Einstein
Repulsive matter could have played a role in the early universe, a computational study finds.
- Cosmology
Galaxies may be aligned across 1 billion light-years
Powerful plasma jets from cores of galaxies seem to mysteriously align with one another and hint at an unknown mechanism shaping galaxy groups.
- Planetary Science
Setting sights on Mars — a half-century ago
Fifty years ago, the United States turned its eyes toward Mars and set a goal of sending humans as soon as possible.
- Planetary Science
Planets stake their claim around infant star
At the center of the newly released telescope image is HL Tau, a star located about 450 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. A dense disk of gas and dust surrounds the star, which is a youthful million years old.
- Planetary Science
Philae lander sent in a surprise before going to sleep
The robotic probe that landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has beamed back some surprises about the icy boulder.
- Planetary Science
Cassini maps depths of Titan’s seas
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finds that some methane seas on Titan extend more than 200 meters beneath the Saturnian moon’s surface.
