Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Death of a pioneer
Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to reach the fringes of the solar system, appears to have sent its last feeble signal to Earth on Jan. 22.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Doomsday Scenario: Phantom energy would trigger the Big Rip
According to a new model, the universe may end with a Big Rip—every galaxy, star, planet, molecule, and atom torn asunder and the cosmos ceasing to exist some 21 billion years from now.
- Astronomy
Dead stars may masquerade as ingenues
A heavenly deception in which dead stars lie about their ages could throw into disarray theories describing some of the densest objects in the cosmos.
- Astronomy
Mature Before Their Time
Some galaxies were in place and forming stars at a prolific rate when the universe, now 13.7 billion years old, was just an 800-million-year-old whippersnapper.
- Planetary Science
Martian Gullies: Carved by melting snow?
Melting snow may have sculpted the recently formed gullies found at midlatitudes on Mars.
- Planetary Science
Space Class
If you’re looking for classroom materials tied to recent NASA news reports, such as evidence suggesting the presence of water on Mars, this Web site pulls together a variety of articles, images, and Web links related to any given report. The archive includes topics such as solar storms, meteors, planetary alignments, eclipses, and many others. […]
- Astronomy
Gamma-ray craft plunges into Pacific
As planned, NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which had detected some of the highest-energy radiation in the universe for 9 years, crashed into the Pacific Ocean on June 4.
- Astronomy
Stars’ wobbles reveal six more planets
Swiss astronomers have found indirect evidence of six additional planets that lie outside the solar system, bringing the tally to more than 40.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Revelations: Satellite homes in on the infant universe
A new portrait of the infant universe pins down the age of the universe—13.7 billion years—to an unprecedented accuracy of 1 percent, provides new evidence that the universe began with a brief but humongous growth spurt, and reveals that it already contained a plethora of stars when it was just 200 million years old.
- Astronomy
Starry eruption on a grand scale
Monitoring the bloated star Rho Cassiopeiae, astronomers report they witnessed an explosion that blasted more material into space than any other stellar explosion ever observed.
-
- Planetary Science
New moons for Neptune?
Astronomers say they have discovered three additional moons circling Neptune.
