Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
These discoveries in 2024 could be groundbreaking — if they’re true
Did microbes ever live on Mars? Did an "elevator" help build Egypt’s first pyramid? Some signs pointed to yes this year, but confirmation is still needed.
- Space
The 2024 eclipse gave a rare view of the sun. Here’s a peek at early data
Teams are starting to analyze data from the total solar eclipse to learn more about the sun’s corona, gravity waves and changes in Earth’s ionosphere.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Perseverance rover found a new potential setting for Martian life
Now atop Jezero Crater, the robotic explorer found quartz indicative of habitable environments and possibly the oldest rocks yet seen in the solar system.
- Space
Space missions spanned the solar system in 2024
Humankind accomplished new feats in space this year, including scooping up some of the moon’s farside and launching a probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa.
- Astronomy
Astronomers see the astrosphere of a sunlike star for the first time
Finding a bubble of hot gas blown by the stellar wind from a young star gives researchers a peek at what our sun was like when it was young.
- Space
A spacecraft duo will fly in formation to create artificial solar eclipses
ESA’s Proba-3 mission will use one satellite to block out the sun for another satellite, bringing the sun’s middle corona into new focus.
- Space
What will it take to defend the world from an asteroid?
In How to Kill an Asteroid, Robin George Andrews looks at the successes and shortcomings of planetary defense.
- Astronomy
This is the first close-up image of a star beyond our galaxy
The first-ever close-up of an extragalactic star looks different than expected and might give a view of what stars look like at the end of their lives.
- Planetary Science
Mars’ potato-shaped moons could be the remains of a shredded asteroid
Phobos and Deimos could have formed from asteroid debris, a new study suggests. An upcoming sample return mission will help test the idea.
- Cosmology
Einstein’s gravity endures despite a dark energy puzzle
The DESI project previously reported that dark energy — long thought to be constant — changes over time. A new analysis reaffirms that claim.
- Planetary Science
A first look at rocks from the lunar farside create a volcanic mystery
Rocks returned by China’s Chang’e-6 mission suggest volcanic activity just 2.8 billion years ago but lack telltale heat-generating elements.
- Planetary Science
Uranus may have looked weird when NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by
A solar wind event days before the NASA probe flyby in 1986 may have compressed the planet’s magnetosphere, making it look odder than it usually is.
