Space
- Astronomy
Strange six-tailed asteroid makes a scene
In September, scientists used the Hubble Space Telescope to image the object and were shocked to see its cometlike appearance.
- Microbes
Bacteria starved in space grow better
Given limited resources microbes in microgravity make more new cells than their counterparts on Earth.
- Planetary Science
Meteor explosions like this year’s Russian fireball more common than thought
Chelyabinsk-sized rocks may come to Earth every 30 years, on average.
- Science & Society
Feedback
Our redesigned cover and the astronomy stories from the Oct. 19 issue get readers' reviews.
- Science & Society
Replacing paradigms requires open minds
Cosmological crises require creativity, but science enforces conformity.
- Astronomy
Billions and billions of Earth-sized planets call Milky Way home
Using Kepler data, astronomers estimate that a sizeable fraction of the galaxy’s sunlike stars have Earth-sized planets that could support liquid water.
- Astronomy
Giant loner could shift idea of star formation
Observations of WR 102ka suggest it could have been born without any gaseous companions.
- Planetary Science
Moon material on Earth
Scientists now think that tektites are a type of impactite, formed during the rapid heating and cooling of material ejected when a meteorite strikes Earth.
- Astronomy
Astronomers explain planets’ backward motion
Giant planets in distant orbits may be reversing the direction of their closer-in neighbors.
- Cosmology
Dark energy search gets murkier
Supernova measurements muddle scientists’ efforts to explain universe’s accelerating expansion.
- Cosmology
Candidates for dark matter particles bite the dust
Most sensitive experiment yet determines that earlier findings were just artifacts.
- Astronomy
An Earth-sized hell circles faraway star
Kepler-78b, an Earth-sized, extremely hot exoplanet made of rock and iron, is the smallest with known diameter and mass.
