Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
Newfound planet stirs old debate
The discoverers of a fourth body orbiting a nearby star say its origins pose a challenge to existing theory, but some disagree.
- Space
It’s really full of stars
Astronomers find such an abundance of red dwarfs in eight nearby galaxies that they suggest the stellar population of the universe may be three times current estimates.
- Space
Cosmic rebirth
Circular patterns in the universe's pervasive background radiation suggest that the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe, but only the latest of its incarnations.
- Space
How to use a pulsar to find Starbucks
Using stars as celestial beacons could be a backup if GPS ground stations failed.
- Space
A cometary blizzard
NASA's EPOXI mission encountered a snowstorm when it zipped by Comet Hartley 2.
- Space
It came from another galaxy
Extrasolar planet traces its origin outside the Milky Way to an ancient neighboring galaxy.
- Space
Cost overruns and delays add up to $6.5 billion for NASA’s next-gen space telescope
A new report finds that the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, will cost NASA at least $1.5 billion more than the $5 billion the agency estimated in 2008 and, to meet its scheduled 2015 launch date, will need $400 million of that additional money over the next two years.
- Space
Milky Way’s black hole may blow bubbles
Astronomers have discovered two giant blobs of gamma ray–emitting gas above and below the galaxy’s center.
- Life
Three scientists, three wishes (with extras for the cosmologist)
Research luminaries reveal the questions they'd most like to see answered.
- Space
LHC switching gears
The premier European collider will spend the next month smashing lead nuclei together.
- Space
EPOXI spacecraft encounters comet
Passing within 700 kilometers of the peanut-shaped Hartley 2 nets detailed pictures.
- Space
Magnetars may fuel briefer bursts
Rapidly spinning neutron stars could be the source of some short gamma-ray explosions, astronomers propose.
