Space
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Gammas from Heaven
An orbiting gamma-ray observatory, set for launch next spring, will seek out the most violent events in the cosmos.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Odd Couples: Big black holes challenge star theory
The discovery of a black hole almost 16 times as massive as the sun, and the possible discovery of an even heavier one, challenge theories of how such black holes form.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Record-breaking supernova
A newly discovered supernova, 100 billion times as bright as the sun, is the most luminous ever recorded.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Portrait of a Martian crater
An ultrasharp image of part of Mars' Gale crater shows waterborne sediments and volcanic ash.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Motion of two nearby galaxies clouds the picture
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way, but are relative newcomers passing by for the first time.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Titan: Land of lakes—and drizzle
A newly assembled mosaic of radar images of Saturn's moon Titan shows what appear to be hydrocarbon lakes and seas.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Sunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet’s tail
Images from a spacecraft show a magnetic hurricane from the sun severing a comet's ion tail.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Martian rovers survive storm
Three months after being stymied by a planet-wide dust storm, NASA's twin Mars rovers are back in action.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Match Made in Heaven: Nearby galaxies resemble faraway type
Several nearby galaxies seem nearly identical to some of the remotest galaxies known, offering a glimpse of the era when galaxies first formed.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Neptune’s balmy south pole
Neptune's south pole is about 10°C warmer than any other place on the planet.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Sputnik + 50
The launch of Sputnik 1, 50 years ago, ushered in a scientific and technological revolution, but dreams of the human conquest of space have faded.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Out-of-focus find
Blurry images yield estimates of the true width of glowing meteor vapor trails in Earth's upper atmosphere.
By Sid Perkins