Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Dance of the dead
Astronomers have found what appears to be the fastest-spinning stellar corpse known.
- Planetary Science
Saturn’s rings: A panoramic perspective
Sailing high above Saturn's equator, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took the most sweeping views of the planet's icy rings ever recorded.
- Planetary Science
A crack at life
New images of ancient cracks on Mars suggest that liquid may have percolated through underground rock on the Red Planet, providing a possible habitat for primitive life.
- Planetary Science
Stormy Weather in Space: Craft take panoramic view of solar eruptions
Twin spacecraft have for the first time tracked solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections, from their birth in the lower depths of the sun's atmosphere all the way to Earth's orbit.
- Astronomy
Alien Light: Taking the spectra of extrasolar planets
Astronomers have for the first time recorded the spectra of light emitted by two extrasolar planets.
- Planetary Science
Solar craft reaches a new low
The Ulysses spacecraft passed directly below the sun on Feb. 7, looking up at its south pole, a feat the craft has done only twice before.
- Astronomy
Studies of Light and Shadow
Two new surveys of the night sky examine the two facets of galaxy formation: the glitter and the gloom.
- Astronomy
On the Trail of Dead Planets: Dust ring around a white dwarf
Infrared observations have depicted the dusty vestiges of a planetary system dancing around a dead star.
- Planetary Science
Titan’s organic cloud
The Cassini spacecraft has imaged a huge cloud that engulfs most of the north pole of Saturn's icy moon Titan and could be a source of the moon's hydrocarbon lakes.
- Astronomy
Tiny shutters for new observatory
A recently developed device, known as a microshutter, will allow the proposed James Webb Space Telescope to simultaneously record the spectra of light from 100 galaxies.
- Planetary Science
Solar craft get into position
With the assist of gravitational boosts from the moon, twin spacecraft have completed a series of maneuvers that will enable them to take three-dimensional images of the sun.
- Astronomy
Kaput: Hubble’s main camera stops working
The sharpest, most sensitive camera on the aging Hubble Space Telescope has stopped working.
