Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
New Horizons recovers from overload, is on track for Pluto flyby
New Horizons transmits the best pictures of Pluto to date shortly before the spacecraft went quiet over the weekend.
- Astronomy
Beta Pictoris planet makes waves
Spiral waves whip through the belt of debris around a young star — and it’s all a giant planet’s fault.
- Planetary Science
Pluto may have spots the size of Missouri
Dark spots emerge on the surface of Pluto in recent images from the New Horizons spacecraft.
- Life
Puzzling cosmic signals, processed food defined and more reader feedback
Readers sort out a definition for processed food, discuss the benefits of tinkering with human DNA and more.
- Astronomy
A loopy look at sunspots
In visible light, sunspots look like dark blotches that often expel flares of searing plasma. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory offers a different view.
- Physics
In retirement, Nobelist takes up moon bouncing
A lifelong amateur radio enthusiast, Joseph Taylor sends signals via the moon.
- Astronomy
Super-Earths are not a good place for plate tectonics
The intense pressures inside super-Earths make plate tectonics less likely, new research suggests.
- Astronomy
Advice to a baby planet: Avoid black holes
A dust cloud looping around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole might have once been an infant planet.
- Astronomy
X-ray rings reveal neutron star’s distance
Concentric X-ray rings around a neutron star help astronomers triangulate the star’s distance.
- Planetary Science
50 years ago, Mariner 4 sent back first pictures from Mars
On July 14, 1965, Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to fly by Mars. The probe also sent back the first pictures of another planet taken from space.
- Astronomy
Dark galaxies grow in abundance
Nearly 1,000 shadowy galaxies lurk in a nearby cluster, some of which are as massive as the Milky Way and yet have only 0.1 percent the number of stars.
- Planetary Science
Rosetta mission extended until September 2016
The Rosetta spacecraft will explore comet 67P through September 2016 and then may go to sleep on the comet’s surface.
