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Anthropology

Isotopes reveal sources of ancient timbers

Isotopic analysis of architectural timbers from ancient dwellings in the U.S. Southwest has shown from which distant forests the massive logs came.

Astronomy

Probe’s comet encounter yields close-ups

A crippled NASA probe successfully navigated close enough to Comet Borrelly to capture and beam home black-and-white and infared images of its nucleus and new data about ions and other particles that radiate from it.

Physics

Atomic Crowds Tied by Quantum Thread

Quantum states of record numbers of atoms—entire atom clouds—get blended together by physicists wielding a new, relatively simple technique in quantum telecommunications and computing.

Astronomy

After a failure, a new craft to sail

Despite the July 20 failure of its mission to test the unfurling of a solar sail in a suborbital trajectory, the Planetary Society announced plans in late August to conduct a second test of a sail-propelled craft.

Astronomy

A meteorite’s pristine origins

A rare, carbon-rich meteorite that fell into a frozen Canadian lake last year ranks as the most pristine of such specimens ever found.

Astronomy

Gravity’s lens: Finding a sextet of images

Astronomers have for the first time found a gravitational lens in which the image of a distant galaxy has been split into six distinct images.

Astronomy

Gravity’s lens: Finding a dim cluster

Relying solely on a gravitational mirage rather than visible images, astronomers have discovered a previously unknown cluster of galaxies and measured its distance from Earth.

Earth

Dust, the Thermostat

Analyses suggest that dust has profound, complex, and far-reaching effects on the planet's climate.