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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Planetary Science

    MAVEN spacecraft set to explore Martian atmosphere

    The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft entered into orbit around the Red Planet on September 21.

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  2. Planetary Science

    Feedback

    Readers discuss sources of stress in everyday life and tell us what they think about NASA's plan to nab an asteroid.

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  3. Astronomy

    Enormous black hole resides at core of tiny galaxy

    A small galaxy stores 15 percent of its mass in a black hole, suggesting compact galaxies might be shreds of once larger galaxies.

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  4. Astronomy

    Tweak to dark matter may explain Milky Way mystery

    Dark matter weakly interacting with light in the early universe might have prevented satellite galaxies from forming around Milky Way, astronomers propose.

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  5. Planetary Science

    Spot on comet chosen for Rosetta mission lander

    Philae, the Rosetta mission lander, will attempt to land on a spot called site J on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

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  6. Planetary Science

    Moon’s farside hints at violent volcanic explosions

    The spread of the element thorium in the moon's Compton-Belkovich region suggests that silica volcanoes there once had violent explosions.

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  7. Astronomy

    Mystery of missing lithium extends beyond Milky Way

    Stars in cluster Messier 54, part of a nearby dwarf galaxy, have just as little lithium as stars in the Milky Way, suggesting that the mystery of the missing element is universal.

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  8. Planetary Science

    Plate tectonics spotted on Europa

    First evidence for plate tectonics elsewhere in solar system discovered on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

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  9. Astronomy

    Rosetta’s comet shows few signs of surface ice

    The first data sent back from one instrument aboard the Rosetta spacecraft suggests that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has little surface ice.

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  10. Astronomy

    Plasma corkscrews form on sun during stellar eruption

    Coronal mass ejection creates twisted loop in sun’s magnetic field.

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  11. Astronomy

    Milky Way connected to a vast network of galaxies

    The Milky Way galaxy lives on the outer edge of a newly discovered supercluster of galaxies named Laniakea that is 520 million light-years across.

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  12. Astronomy

    Subatomic particles give glimpse into sun’s core

    For the first time, a subterranean detector has captured neutrinos generated in the main nuclear reactions that power the sun.

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