Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Comet ISON approaches sun for Thanksgiving flyby
On Thanksgiving, Comet ISON will pass near the sun and may disintegrate.
- Astronomy
Dust cloud, tail could explain exoplanet’s odd light pattern
KIC 12557548 b may be ejecting dust from its surface, creating a cometlike tail behind it and an opaque envelope of material around it.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot explained
A computer simulation is the first to explain how Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has survived for the nearly 200 years humans have observed it.
- Space
Making the most of zero gravity
Astronaut and author Chris Hadfield discusses life in, and after, space.
- Astronomy
Bright gamma-ray burst tests idea of event’s origins
High-energy light particles suggest that physicists need to revise their theories explaining the origin of these cosmic blasts.
- Astronomy
High-energy neutrinos ensnared from beyond the solar system
Speedy particles detected in Antarctica may point to gargantuan black holes or cataclysmic explosions.
-
- Planetary Science
Ancient Martian meteorite preserves chunks of planet’s early crust
Rock could reveal what Mars was like 4.4 billion years ago.
- Planetary Science
MAVEN spacecraft blasts off to Mars
In September 2014, the satellite will begin studying the Red Planet's upper atmosphere.
- Cosmology
For proposals that challenge paradigms, peruse arXiv.org
The online physics archive offers crazy ideas to confront cosmological challenges.
- Astronomy
Solar explosion forms ‘Canyon of Fire’
Just when the sun was looking especially lethargic, a violent eruption left behind a vast chasm of superheated gas on the solar surface.
- Astronomy
Black hole spurts jets of iron and nickel
New observations show that the jets of black hole 4U 1630-47 carry massive particles such as iron and nickel atoms instead of the typical low-mass particles such as electrons.
