Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
Signs of recent water on Mars
Pictures showing fresh deposits of bright material on two Martian gullies provide the most compelling evidence yet that water flowed on parts of the Red Planet during the last few years.
- Astronomy
Comet Sampler: Specimens show that inner and outer solar system mixed
Just as the solar system was forming some 4.6 billion years ago, some of the hottest material, residing so close to the sun that it was almost vaporized, sped out to the chilliest reaches of deep space, where it became incorporated into comets.
- Astronomy
The magnetic link between star and planet
Astronomers have for the first time directly measured the magnetic field of a star known to host a giant planet.
- Planetary Science
So long, Surveyor
After 8 years of relaying pictures, topographic maps, magnetic field data, and compositional information from above the Red Planet, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft appears to have called it quits.
- Planetary Science
Howdy, Neighbors: Long-term study finds a batch of red dwarfs
Astronomers have found 20 previously unknown star systems that lie within 33 light-years of Earth.
- Astronomy
What’s a Planet?
Recent observations have blurred distinctions among stars, brown dwarfs, and planets.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Pops: Nearby galaxy is hotbed of supernova formation
Large galaxies usually have no more than three supernovas blow up in a century, but the nearby galaxy NGC 1316 has had two such explosions within the past 5 months and four in the past 26 years.
- Astronomy
Dark Fingerprints: Hubble sheds light on cosmic expansion
The mysterious cosmic push that's tearing up the universe began revving up about 5 billion years ago.
- Astronomy
Nearest extrasolar planet
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of the nearest known planet beyond the solar system.
- Astronomy
Black hole survey
Scanning the sky for high-energy X rays, a NASA satellite found more than 200 supermassive black holes within 400 million light-years of Earth.
- Astronomy
New eye on the sun
The recently launched Hinode spacecraft captured an X-ray portrait of several-million-degree gas in the sun's outer atmosphere.
- Astronomy
Rejuvenating Observatory: Green light given for space telescope repairs
NASA this week gave the go-ahead for a shuttle crew to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope and to install new detectors that would vastly improve its capabilities.
