Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
Titan’s organic cloud
The Cassini spacecraft has imaged a huge cloud that engulfs most of the north pole of Saturn's icy moon Titan and could be a source of the moon's hydrocarbon lakes.
- Astronomy
Tiny shutters for new observatory
A recently developed device, known as a microshutter, will allow the proposed James Webb Space Telescope to simultaneously record the spectra of light from 100 galaxies.
- Planetary Science
Solar craft get into position
With the assist of gravitational boosts from the moon, twin spacecraft have completed a series of maneuvers that will enable them to take three-dimensional images of the sun.
- Astronomy
Kaput: Hubble’s main camera stops working
The sharpest, most sensitive camera on the aging Hubble Space Telescope has stopped working.
- Astronomy
Magnificent McNaught
Flaunting a majestic tail over southern skies, Comet McNaught became in mid-January the brightest comet in more than 40 years.
- Planetary Science
Stellar death may spawn solar system
Material shed by a dying star might give birth to planets.
- Astronomy
Astronomers discover smallest galaxy ever
Astronomers have found the smallest galaxy yet recorded, about one-sixteenth the diameter of the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
A Cosmic Pas de Trois: Triple-quasar system may signal galaxy mergers
Astronomers have discovered the first example of a trio of quasars, the brilliant beacons of light that seem to be fueled by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
- Astronomy
Fleet Finding: Speed of Milky Way’s companions poses puzzle
New measurements of the speed of two familiar companion galaxies to the Milky Way suggest some unfamiliar possibilities.
- Planetary Science
From the January 2, 1937, issue
The beauty of snow, a very large number, and a robot brain machine.
- Astronomy
Rocky Finding: Evidence of extrasolar asteroid belt
Astronomers have obtained some of the best evidence yet for an asteroid belt beyond the solar system.
- Astronomy
A New Spin
Using a flotilla of spacecraft to study X-ray emissions from the vicinity of black holes, astronomers are nudging ever closer to the whirlpool of activity surrounding these gravitational monsters.
