Space
We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
Meteorites could have thickened primordial soup
New experiments show that extraterrestrial impacts that occurred early in our planet's history could have created the raw materials for life.
- Astronomy
Stargazing Basics: Getting Started in Recreational Astronomy by Paul E. Kinzer
Cambridge Univ., 2008, 147 p., $19.99.
- Earth
The Hunt for Habitable Planets
Here and now, a new suite of small telescopes are poised to look for Earthlike planets beyond the solar system.
- Space
First LHC proton collisions postponed further
The world’s most powerful atom smasher won’t reopen for business until the end of June at the earliest, rather than in April as scientists had previously estimated.
- Space
Martian stairs suggest predictable ancient climate
Tilt in Mars' axis could have created stair-stepped rock formations long ago.
- Space
Debates over definition of planet continue and inspire
Planetary science is in the midst of a revolution. As recently as the early 1990s, “the planets” consisted of just nine famous objects in our solar system that every school kid learned to recognize by name and appearance. But then, advances in astronomical technology unleashed an explosion of new planetary discoveries on two fronts. One […]
- Space
First detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet
Moving one step closer to finding the fingerprints of life in a habitable planet beyond the solar system, astronomers have for the first time detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet.
- Physics
Standard model gets right answer for proton, neutron masses
Correct calculation strengthens theory of quark-gluon interactions in nuclear particles.
- Space
Water-ice deposits found beneath Martian hills
Using radar from an orbiting spacecraft to penetrate the hidden recesses of Mars, planetary prospectors have uncovered vast reserves of water-ice buried beneath rocky debris.
- Space
Misplaced muons either mundane or monumental
During an experiment in Fermilab's Tevatron particle accelerator, a group of elementary particles called muons showed up in a strange place. Physicists are considering the likely implications.
- Space
Extrasolar planetary system makes pictorial debut
The first images of a planetary system beyond the solar system are released, while the Hubble Space Telescope snaps a shot of likely planet orbiting a nearby star.
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