Space

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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Tech

    Gecko-inspired robot grippers could grab hold of space junk

    Aboard a microgravity plane, NASA is testing gecko-inspired grippers that one day could help clear up space junk.

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  2. Astronomy

    Satellite trio will hunt gravitational waves from space

    The European Space Agency has green-lighted the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, expected to launch in 2034.

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  3. Astronomy

    Kepler shows small exoplanets are either super-Earths or mini-Neptunes

    The final catalog from the Kepler space telescope splits Earthlike exoplanets into two groups and pinpoints 10 new rocky planets in the habitable zone.

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  4. Astronomy

    Eclipse watchers catch part of the sun’s surface fleeing to space

    A serendipitous eruption during a solar eclipse showed relatively cool blobs of plasma, wrapped in a million-degree flame, streaming from the sun.

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  5. Planetary Science

    See the latest stunning views of Jupiter

    Once every 53 days, NASA’s Juno spacecraft zooms past Jupiter’s cloud tops. A new sequence of images reveals the encounter from Juno’s viewpoint.

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  6. Astronomy

    Life might have a shot on planets orbiting dim red stars

    The number of planets in the habitable zone of dim red suns, known as M dwarfs, is growing. They’re a good place to look for life.

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  7. Planetary Science

    Jupiter’s precocious birth happened in the solar system’s first million years

    Jupiter formed within the first million years of the solar system, according to meteorite measurements.

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  8. Cosmology

    Milky Way’s loner status is upheld

    Galaxy surveys show the Milky Way lives in a vast cosmic void, which could help ease tensions between ways of measuring how fast the universe is expanding.

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  9. Astronomy

    Einstein’s light-bending by single far-off star detected

    A measurement so precise Einstein thought it couldn't be done has demonstrated his most famous theory on a star outside the solar system for the first time.

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  10. Astronomy

    Scalding hot gas giant breaks heat records

    KELT 9b’s sun blasts it with so much radiation that the planet’s dayside is hotter than most stars and its atmosphere is being stripped away.

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  11. Physics

    LIGO snags another set of gravitational waves

    Two black holes stirred up the third set of gravitational waves ever detected.

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  12. Particle Physics

    Readers puzzled by proton’s properties

    Readers sent feedback on under-ice greenhouses in the Arctic, the Martian atmosphere and more.

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