Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
A Year on Mars
Catch up with the amazing, ongoing adventures of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, still ticking on the surface of Mars. These multimedia pages provide maps and routes, images, and accounts of discoveries as the two vehicles explored the Red Planet. Go to: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/mer-year/
- Astronomy
Black Hole Bonanza: 10,000 objects near our galaxy’s center
Astronomers have found the first evidence of a suspected population of black holes near the Milky Way's center, each hole with 10 times the mass of the sun.
- Planetary Science
A World Unveiled: Crème brûlée on Titan
Penetrating the orange haze of a frigid, alien world, a space probe parachuted onto Saturn's moon Titan and unexpectedly came face-to-face with terrain that looks a lot like Earth.
- Astronomy
Stars in the dust
The dusty disks surrounding three nearby stars show that they played host to massive collisions between asteroid-like objects as recently as 100 years ago.
- Astronomy
Zooming in on a great void
New X-ray observations provide the most detailed view yet of the environment near a supermassive black hole.
- Astronomy
The Hole Story
New evidence suggests that supermassive black holes have an impact on the evolution of galaxies that goes far beyond their gravitational grasp.
- Astronomy
Ultimate Retro: Modern echoes of the early universe
Two teams of astronomers have for the first time detected the surviving notes of a cosmic symphony created just after the Big Bang, when the universe was a foggy soup of matter and radiation.
- Astronomy
Ring robber
Images taken by the Cassini spacecraft provide graphic evidence of Saturn's moon Prometheus stealing particles from the planet's narrow F ring.
- Astronomy
A dwarf with a disk
The Hubble Space Telescope has examined in unprecedented detail a ring of debris around a star that could be the nearest and youngest known home for planets outside the solar system.
- Astronomy
Young and Near: Baby galaxies roam our backyard
An ultraviolet-detecting satellite has found that youthful versions of massive galaxies like the Milky Way may be only a cosmic stone's throw away.
- Astronomy
People, Not Robots: Panel favors shuttle mission to Hubble
Sharply challenging NASA on the issue of safety in space, a National Academy of Sciences panel has recommended that the agency send astronauts to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope rather than send a robotic device.
- Astronomy
Disks of Dust: Planet-stuff surrounds other sunlike stars
Two orbiting observatories for the first time are homing in on planetary debris circling sunlike stars.
