Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Gravity at play: A double lens
Astronomers have discovered an extraordinarily rare double cosmic mirage.
- Astronomy
Case of the misshapen disk
A deformed disk around a young star may have gotten its swept-back appearance as the result of a collision with a dense gas cloud.
- Astronomy
X-raying a galactic jet set
The deepest X-ray portrait ever taken of the galaxy Centaurus A highlights its jets and activity around its supermassive black hole.
- Astronomy
Second Time Around: Some old stars may make new planets
Two old stars appear to have been rejuvenated and may be undergoing a new wave of planet formation hundreds of millions to billions of years after young stars normally do.
- Astronomy
Heavy Find: Weighty neutron stars may rule out exotic core
Neutron stars may be the weirdest stars in the universe, but they don't seem to be very strange, a weighty new report finds.
- Astronomy
Twinkle, Twinkle: Dark matter may have lit up first stars
The earliest stars in the universe might have been fueled by dark matter instead of nuclear fusion.
- Astronomy
Black Hole Bully: Galaxy blasts its smaller neighbor
A distant galaxy is shooting a deadly jet of radiation at a neighboring galaxy, astronomers have observed.
- Astronomy
Run of the Mill: Finding galactic building blocks in early universe
Astronomers have discovered 27 faint, run-of-the-mill galaxies from the early universe that may be some of the building blocks of giant galaxies such as the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
Stellar Opposites: Sky survey reveals new halo of stars
The Milky Way galaxy possesses a distinct outer halo that orbits in the opposite direction from its inner halo and the rest of the galaxy.
- Planetary Science
A sunlike star’s early development
A new infrared portrait of an embryonic sunlike star reveals an early, crucial step in the process of planet formation.
- Planetary Science
Sister Planet: Mission to Venus reveals watery past
The Venus Express probe has found evidence that Venus once had more water than it does today, and has provided new measurements of the weather on Venus, proof of lightning on the planet, and signs of a formerly unknown hot spot near its south pole.
- Astronomy
One star, five planets
With the discovery of a fifth planet circling the nearby star 55 Cancri, astronomers have found the most abundant—and heaviest—planetary system beyond the sun's.
