Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Sunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet’s tail
Images from a spacecraft show a magnetic hurricane from the sun severing a comet's ion tail.
- Planetary Science
Martian rovers survive storm
Three months after being stymied by a planet-wide dust storm, NASA's twin Mars rovers are back in action.
- Astronomy
Match Made in Heaven: Nearby galaxies resemble faraway type
Several nearby galaxies seem nearly identical to some of the remotest galaxies known, offering a glimpse of the era when galaxies first formed.
- Planetary Science
Neptune’s balmy south pole
Neptune's south pole is about 10°C warmer than any other place on the planet.
- Astronomy
Sputnik + 50
The launch of Sputnik 1, 50 years ago, ushered in a scientific and technological revolution, but dreams of the human conquest of space have faded.
- Astronomy
Out-of-focus find
Blurry images yield estimates of the true width of glowing meteor vapor trails in Earth's upper atmosphere.
- Planetary Science
Muddying the Water? Orbiter drains confidence from fluid story of Mars
New images of Mars diminish the evidence that liquid water has flowed on some parts of the planet, but bolster the case in other places.
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- Planetary Science
Survivor: Extrasolar planet escapes stellar attack
An extrasolar planet survived after its aging parent star ballooned into a red giant that almost engulfed it.
- Astronomy
Bloated planet
A newly discovered exoplanet is the largest and lowest-density such object yet found.
- Astronomy
Major merger
Four galaxies are ramming into each other in one of the biggest cosmic collisions ever recorded.
- Planetary Science
A different view of Uranus’ rings
The rings of Uranus are now tilted edge on to Earth, revealing small, inner rings made of fine dust.
