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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Physics

    Meet Big Bird, highest-energy neutrino ever detected

    Big Bird, the neutrino, struck the Antarctic ice with a record 2 million billion electron volts of energy.

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  2. Planetary Science

    Mercury’s surface once exploded in volcanoes

    Newly released images show ancient vents and ash scattered within craters on Mercury's surface.

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  3. Planetary Science

    Subsurface sea hides below ice of Saturn moon

    Astronomers add to evidence for a subsurface ocean on Enceladus using subtle variations in the moon’s gravity.

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  4. Planetary Science

    Moon gets younger age estimate

    The moon may have formed about 95 million years after the birth of the solar system, up to 70 million years later than some scientists previously predicted.

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  5. Cosmology

    Maybe time’s arrow needs ergodicity as well as entropy

    Explaining the arrow of time might require an equilibrium universe with hidden ergodic dynamics.

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  6. Astronomy

    This winter warrior made the gravitational waves discovery possible

    Engineer Steffen Richter played an important role in the recent gravitational waves discovery, wintering at the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole and making daily treks to keep the BICEP2 telescope running.

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  7. Planetary Science

    Icy rings found around tiny space rock

    Astronomers discover an icy ring around the planetoid Chariklo, held in place by unseen moons.

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  8. Planetary Science

    Icy planetoid found lurking at edge of solar system

    Astronomers discovered an icy planetoid orbiting beyond the edge of the Kuiper belt.

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  9. Astronomy

    Zoom in on amazing detail in NASA moon map

    An interactive mosaic of images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter lets you fly over the Moon’s north pole with unprecedented detail.

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  10. Cosmology

    Cosmic question mark

    Two ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate disagree by about 10 percent. One of the methods may be flawed. Or it could be that a hitherto unobserved phenomenon is at work.

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  11. Cosmology

    Top 10 cosmological discoveries

    The cosmic microwave background radiation has played a part in many of cosmology’s greatest discoveries.

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  12. Planetary Science

    How Earth’s radiation belt gets its ‘stripes’

    The rotation of the Earth may give the planet's inner radiation belt its zebralike stripes.

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