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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Astronomy

    Revived Kepler mission bags three planet candidates

    During a nine-day engineering test, the Kepler space telescope turned up three potential Jupiter-sized planets orbiting other stars.

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  2. Astronomy

    Rocky, overweight planet shakes up theories

    Kepler-10c is a rocky exoplanet 17 times as massive as Earth, and astronomers are puzzled as to how it formed.

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  3. Astronomy

    Kepler space telescope finds first ‘mega-Earth’

    'Mega-Earth' has been added to the distinctions that describe exoplanets thanks to a newly announced Kepler space telescope discovery.

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  4. Planetary Science

    Do-it-yourself solar system

    If you've always wanted to build your own solar system, roll up your sleeves — SuperPlanetCrash is an online solar system simulator, set up as a game.

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  5. Astronomy

    Feedback

    Readers discuss the speed of spinning particles, what defines a planet and how to see invisible shrimp.

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  6. Astronomy

    Young, hot exoplanet takes title for longest year

    Newly discovered exoplanet sits a whopping 2,000 times farther from its star than Earth does from the sun.

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  7. Planetary Science

    Titan’s haze gives clues to clouds on exoplanets

    Titan’s hazy atmosphere may help astronomers better understand what’s going on in the clouds of exoplanets.

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  8. Cosmology

    2014 Kavli Prize winners announced

    Cosmic inflation, nanoscale imaging and a better understanding of memory earn million-dollar honors with the Kavli Prize.

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  9. Astronomy

    Sun shines new life on Kepler space telescope

    NASA approved a proposal to bring the crippled Kepler spacecraft back to life, using sunlight as balance to help the telescope search for planets and more.

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  10. Cosmology

    Dustup emerges over gravitational waves discovery

    While cosmologists wait for data from Planck satellite, some worry that BICEP2 data actually come from our galaxy.

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  11. Planetary Science

    Rosetta spacecraft’s comet develops dusty envelope

    Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the target of ESA’s Rosetta mission, has developed a dust coma.

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  12. Astronomy

    Sun’s sibling spotted

    A nearby star may have come from the same birth cluster as the sun; learning how to find other solar siblings could point the way to their common origin.

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