Astronomy
- Planetary Science
Rosetta spacecraft’s comet develops dusty envelope
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the target of ESA’s Rosetta mission, has developed a dust coma.
- Astronomy
Sun’s sibling spotted
A nearby star may have come from the same birth cluster as the sun; learning how to find other solar siblings could point the way to their common origin.
- Cosmology
The mysterious boundary
A debate has arisen over whether an astronaut passing a black hole’s point of no return would get stretched to death or flash-fried. Resolving the controversy may lead to new insights about gravity and more.
- Astronomy
Milky Way’s far side reveals some secrets
Variable stars provide first direct measurements of distance to the far side of the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
Milky Way’s magnetic field mapped
The Planck telescope sees the galaxy’s magnetic field in polarized light bouncing off interstellar dust grains.
- Cosmology
Universe re-created in computer simulation
The Illustris Project traces the detailed evolution of the universe starting from 12 million years after the Big Bang.
- Astronomy
Illuminating a dark universe
The film "Dark Universe" compresses a century of discovery into a crisp, comprehensible half hour.
- Astronomy
Exoplanet spin measured for first time
Astronomers measure the spin of a planet outside our solar system, and its days are short: just over eight hours.
- Astronomy
Chilly starlike orb found just a few light-years away
WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is the coldest brown dwarf found to date.
- Astronomy
More details of super-bright supernova released
A supernova whose light was magnified by a large galaxy in front of it is changing the way astronomers think about distant cosmic objects.
- Planetary Science
Mountains on Saturn moon may have come from space
A mountainous ridge around the equator of Iapetus, one of Saturn’s moons, may have formed from cosmic debris.
- Astronomy
Distant swirling galaxy dwarfed by violent star killer
In a mosaic of images from a telescope in Chile, dark dust lanes and twisting tails betray a history of galactic collisions.
