Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Astronomy Gets Polarized
Studies using polarized light, an endeavor once considered astronomy's stepchild, are now elucidating the shape of supernovas as well as providing new details about the early universe.
- Astronomy
Planet-making disk has a banana split
Two banana-shaped arcs of gas and dust face each other within a newly discovered planet-forming disk that surrounds a young, nearby star.
- Astronomy
Galactic de Gustibus
About 13 billion years after its birth, our galaxy is still packing on the stars.
- Astronomy
Magnetic Thrust: Fields force matter into black holes
New observations confirm that magnetic fields provide matter with the last push to plunge into a black hole.
- Astronomy
Not a planet?
New observations add to the evidence that an image of a planetary-mass object discovered beyond the solar system is not that of a bona fide planet.
- Astronomy
Spewing superdust
Astronomers have identified a type of supernova as the main source of space dust.
- Astronomy
Mini Solar Systems? Astronomers find disks around planet-size objects
Disks with the potential to form planets, or at least moons, have been found orbiting objects outside the solar system that themselves are no heftier than planets.
- Planetary Science
The sands of Titan
Although the surface of Saturn's moon Titan is cold enough to freeze methane, it has sand dunes like those in the Arabian Desert, according to radar images taken by the Cassini spacecraft.
- Astronomy
Safe from a Heavenly Doom: Gamma-ray bursts not a threat to Earth
Gamma-ray bursts are likely to occur in the Milky Way.
- Planetary Science
Hubble eyes Jupiter’s second red spot
Hubble Space Telescope images are providing astronomers with the sharpest views yet of a new red spot on Jupiter.
- Astronomy
Crust on a star
By analyzing X rays generated by the rumblings of a neutron star 40,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers have estimated the thickness of the dense star's crust.
- Astronomy
Big Breakup: That’s the way the comet crumbles
Scores of telescopes are watching the continuing breakup of a comet as it nears the sun.
