Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
More moons for Saturn
With the discovery of two additional moons, the ringed planet now has a retinue of 24 known satellites orbiting it.
- Planetary Science
Mars Views Hint at Early Land of Lakes
New, high-resolution images unveiled this week not only offer supporting evidence that parts of ancient Mars resembled a land of lakes but also point out prime locations to look for fossils if life ever existed on the Red Planet.
- Planetary Science
An early cosmic wallop for life on Earth?
New evidence from lunar meteorites suggests that debris bombarded the moon some 3.9 billion years ago, about the same time that life may have formed on Earth.
- Astronomy
Old stars shed light on young Milky Way
Analyzing the composition of 70 of the oldest stars in the galaxy—the largest such sample so far—scientists have found new evidence that a generation of short-lived stars that died explosively must have preceded this elderly population and that the oldest part of the Milky Way originated not as a single component, but as bits and pieces that may have taken several hundred million years to form and coalesce.
- Astronomy
Variable quasar may help measure the cosmos
A flickering cosmic mirage, recorded for the first time in X rays, promises to provide a new estimate of how rapidly the universe is expanding.
- Planetary Science
When storms collide on Jupiter
Astronomers have for the first time witnessed two giant storms merging on Jupiter.
- Planetary Science
NASA postpones plans for Mars samples
Still reeling from the failure of its two most recent missions to Mars, NASA announced late last month that it would delay by nearly a decade plans to bring back samples from the Red Planet.
- Astronomy
Rendezvous gets more personal with Eros
Venturing closer to a space rock than any satellite has ever gone before, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)-Shoemaker mission last week took the sharpest images ever recorded of an asteroid.
- Planetary Science
Threat to Titan mission deepens
If a communications problem between the Huygens probe and its mother craft is not corrected, as much as two-thirds of the data gathered by the probe during its 2004 descent through Titan's atmosphere could be lost.
- Planetary Science
New moons for Saturn
Astronomers reported the discovery of four new moons orbiting Saturn.
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- Astronomy
Are most extrasolar planets hefty imposters?
A new study makes the startling claim that nearly half the objects reported to be extrasolar planets are something much more massive and mundane—either lightweight stars or stellar wannabes known as brown dwarfs.
