Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Help Spot Galaxies
Although computer programs can be written to sort galaxies into general categories, they would inevitably throw out the unusual, the weird and the wonderful, astronomers say. Because the human brain is much better at recognizing patterns, astronomers launched a site this week recruiting the public to help identify spiral galaxies on sky photos. Instructions are […]
- Astronomy
Shattering Find? Comet fragments show surprising uniformity
Close observations of fragments of a comet indicate that its interior was remarkably similar to its surface, meaning that repeated solar heating didn't much change its outer layers.
- Planetary Science
Dust delays Martian rover
A dust storm has delayed the descent of the Mars rover Opportunity into Victoria crater.
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- Planetary Science
Music to alien ears
Saturn's moon Titan may be the best rock concert venue in the solar system, according to computer simulations of sound propagation on other worlds.
- Planetary Science
Eris dwarfs Pluto
Ex-planet Pluto suffers another demotion, as observations show that it's much less massive than Eris, another distant denizen of the outer solar system.
- Planetary Science
Shifting Ocean: Tipsy Mars may explain undulating shoreline
Evidence that Mars once had a vast ocean gains support from a proposal that the planet was tipped halfway over on its side several billion years ago.
- Astronomy
Galactic Émigré: Incoming dwarf galaxy could feed its larger kin
A dwarf galaxy at the periphery of the giant Andromeda galaxy may be a pristine building block for forming galaxies in the modern-day universe.
- Astronomy
Crash will determine solar system’s fate
The solar system already lies in the suburbs of the Milky Way, but the sun and its planets will be yanked even farther away about 5 billion years from now.
- Astronomy
Big Broadcast
A record-breaking radio burst from the sun last Dec. 6 temporarily overwhelmed scores of GPS receivers, highlighting the hazard of radio storms on Earth.
- Planetary Science
Powering Enceladus’ plumes
The action of Saturn's gravity is responsible for plumes of water vapor shooting out from cracks on the moon Enceladus.
- Planetary Science
Violent Past: Young sun withstood a supernova blast
A big bully pummeled the infant solar system, first by blasting it with a massive wind, then by exploding nearby, driving shock waves into the fledgling solar system and irrevocably altering its chemistry.
