Space
Sign up for our newsletter
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
-
AstronomyModel Tracks Storms from the Sun
Teams of astronomers have developed a reliable method for predicting the time it takes for solar storms to arrive at Earth and have gathered observations confirming a model of how the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, manages to store up enough magnetic energy to induce these upheavals.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyRunaway black hole
Observing a black hole and its visible companion star caroming through our galaxy, astronomers have found the best evidence to date that stellar-mass black holes are born during supernova explosions.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyNews of the Early Universe: Findings from the cosmic microwave background
The most detailed snapshots so far of the infant universe confirm that the cosmos consists mostly of mystery material, called dark energy, that accelerates the universe's expansion.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyNews of the Early Universe: Findings from the cosmic microwave background
The most detailed snapshots so far of the infant universe confirm that the cosmos consists mostly of mystery material, called dark energy, that accelerates the universe's expansion.
By Ron Cowen -
Planetary ScienceFresh crater found on lunar images
Scientists analyzing images of the moon's surface taken from lunar orbit believe they've identified the crater that formed when a small asteroid slammed into the moon almost 5 decades ago.
By Sid Perkins -
Planetary ScienceFresh crater found on lunar images
Scientists analyzing images of the moon's surface taken from lunar orbit believe they've identified the crater that formed when a small asteroid slammed into the moon almost 5 decades ago.
By Sid Perkins -
AstronomyBlack holes and galaxies may grow up together
Astronomers have new and, for the first time, quantitative evidence that bigger black holes reside at the centers of bigger galaxies.
By Ron Cowen -
Planetary ScienceMartian History: Weathering a new notion
Researchers suggest that intermittent impacts by huge asteroids and comets some 3.5 billion years ago profoundly influenced the landscape of Mars.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomySizing up small stars
Astronomers have for the first time measured with high precision the size of a small star, Proxima Centauri, the known star nearest to the solar system.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyMilky Way’s Last Major Merger
Astronomers have found new evidence supporting the view that the Milky Way and many other spiral galaxies suffered their last major collision billions of years ago.
By Ron Cowen -
Planetary ScienceX rays reveal Eros’ primitive nature
Aided by a blast of X rays from the sun, a spacecraft orbiting the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros has gathered preliminary evidence that the rock is a primitive relic, apparently unchanged since the birth of the solar system.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomySurvey confirms composition of the cosmos
A team of astronomers announced this week that after measuring the redshifts of 100,000 galaxies, they have new evidence for what makes up most of the mass of the universe.
By Ruth Bennett