Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
Martian soil hints at water, nutrients
The first chemical analysis of dirt by the Mars Phoenix Lander supports the notion that liquid water flowed on the Red Planet at some point.
- Astronomy
Impact may have transformed Mars
Three teams suggest that a huge object slammed into Mars, giving the planet an unusually dualistic topography.
- Space
Safe from black holes
The Large Hadron Collider could generate black holes, but they would be too tiny and short-lived to do any harm and would be no more malevolent than the cosmic rays constantly bombarding Earth, two new reports find.
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- Astronomy
Galaxy Zoo’s blue mystery (part 2)
Featured blog: The enigmatic "Voorwerp" may be a dwarf galaxy lit by the ghostly echoes of a long-gone quasar.
- Astronomy
ExtraSolar
Astronomers hope that new tools will enable them to capture the first image of one of the 300 known planets orbiting distant stars.
- Physics
Galaxy Zoo’s blue mystery (part I)
A Dutch science teacher found a novel celestial object that had eluded the notice of astronomers.
- Space
Twinkle, twinkle little planet
Scientists could use scattered light to identify habitable extrasolar planets.
- Space
Rocky cores form first
A theorist says new extrasolar findings prove that the standard model of planet formation is correct.
- Planetary Science
Surprise found in comet dust
Scientists find an odd mineral that could offer clues to the solar system's origins.
- Astronomy
Otherworldly triple play
Astronomers have discovered the first known system of three superEarths beyond the solar system.
- Astronomy
Accidental astrophysicists
MATH TREK: The mathematicians thought they'd just extended a fundamental result in algebra, but it turns out that they'd also proven a conjecture in astrophysics.
