Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- 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.
- Astronomy
Solar system with seven planets discovered
Kepler data has identified a star with a seven-planet system structured similarly to the sun’s clutch of planets.
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- Astronomy
Oort cloud tosses astronomers a cometary curveball
In late November, ISON will deliver debris from the dawn of the solar system to Earth’s doorstep.
- Astronomy
Most distant galaxy discovered
Astronomers have observed a galaxy as it existed 700 million years after Big Bang.
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- Planetary Science
Carbonation may have grounded Mars’ atmosphere
The chemical interaction could have forced Red Planet’s atmospheric carbon dioxide into the dirt.
