Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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
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.
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- 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
Astronomers rediscover long-lost asteroid
After 89 years of playing a cosmic version of Where's Waldo?, astronomers have located a long-lost asteroid named Albert.
- Astronomy
Galaxies shine light on dark matter
Using a cosmic mirage known as gravitational lensing, astronomers have developed detailed maps of the distribution of dark matter, the invisible material believed to make up 90 percent of the mass of the universe.
- Astronomy
New views of Jovian moons
The Galileo spacecraft has taken the highest-resolution images ever recorded of three of Jupiter's small, innermost moons.
- Astronomy
Astronomers find evidence of missing matter
Astronomers say they've likely confirmed that half of the hydrogen gas in the universe, which had not been accounted for, resides in relatively nearby reaches of intergalactic space.
- Astronomy
X-ray satellite goes the distance
Using the sharp X-ray eye of an orbiting observatory, astronomers have employed a novel method to measure distance within the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
Balloon Sounds Out the Early Universe
A balloon-borne experiment circling Antarctica has measured the curvature of the universe and revealed that it's perfectly flat.
- Astronomy
Milky Way feasts on its neighbors
Three new studies reveal that Earth's home galaxy indulged in cannibalism to assemble its visible halo, the diffuse distribution of stars that surrounds the dense core and disk of the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
Observatory on a suicide mission
Fearing that its 9-year-old workhorse, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, could plunge uncontrollably through the atmosphere if one more of its gyroscopes fails, NASA has decided to crash the spacecraft into the Pacific Ocean in early June.
