Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Hubble Weighs In: Pinning down an extrasolar planet’s mass
Using a decades-old technique, astronomers have precisely measured the mass of a planet outside our solar system.
- Planetary Science
Seeing Saturn
After 5 years of interplanetary travel, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft has taken its first picture of the ringed planet.
- Astronomy
Galactic cannibalism strikes again
Astronomers have discovered the remains of a tiny galaxy that was swallowed by the galaxy Centaurus A only a few hundred million years ago.
- Planetary Science
Martian Radiation: Giving off a faint X-ray glow
Astronomers have for the first time taken an X-ray image of the Red Planet.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Couple: One galaxy, two gravitational beasts
Astronomers welcomed the discovery of two black holes in one galaxy, which confirms some ideas about how galaxies and black holes merge and evolve.
- Astronomy
More evidence of a flat universe
Another balloon-borne experiment recording relic radiation from the Big Bang has found evidence that the universe is flat.
- Astronomy
A supernova’s shocking development
Astronomers have for the first time recorded the full force of the shock wave hurled from supernova 1987A, the brightest stellar explosion witnessed from Earth since the invention of the modern telescope.
- Astronomy
New sky map: Look, Ma, no Milky Way!
Using a radio telescope to record emissions from hydrogen gas, astronomers have penetrated the murk of the Milky Way to map the entire southern sky.
- Planetary Science
Leapin’ Lava! Volcanic eruption on Io breaks the record
Pointing a ground-based telescope at Jupiter's moon Io, astronomers have recorded the most powerful volcano ever observed in the solar system.
- Astronomy
Newfound Galaxy Goes the Distance
Astronomers have discovered a galaxy so remote that the light reaching Earth left the body some 13.6 billion years ago, making it the most distant object ever detected.
- Astronomy
Something New on the Sun
The sharpest visible-light images of the sun ever recorded are revealing puzzling, new features of sunspots, the dark regions where the sun's powerful magnetic field is concentrated.
- Planetary Science
Europa’s freckles
Reddish spots and shallow pits that pepper the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa may mark regions where warmer and less dense ice percolates to the surface.
