Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Planetary Science
A discordant name for a dwarf planet
The largest known object at the fringes of the solar system, the icy body whose discovery heated up the debate about the nature of planethood, has an apt new name.
- Astronomy
Enigmatic Eruptions: Gamma-ray bursts lack supernova fireworks
The most powerful bursts in the universe may have gotten more mysterious.
- Planetary Science
SMART stop
The European Space Agency's first mission to the moon ended with a deliberate bang on Sept. 3.
- Planetary Science
Martian doings
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has finished reshaping its orbit, while the venerable rover Opportunity is approaching the rim of the widest and deepest crater it has yet visited.
- Astronomy
Temperamental Monsters
A new theory suggests that many huge stars undergo outbursts during which they shed most of their mass late in life rather than doing it gradually over their 3-to-4-million-year lifetimes.
- Planetary Science
Oversize Orb: Puffy planet poses puzzle
Astronomers have discovered what may be the largest planet ever found, an orb 36 percent wider than Jupiter that circles a nearby star.
- Planetary Science
Rare Uranian eclipse
The Hubble Space Telescope has for the first time recorded an eclipse on Uranus.
- Astronomy
Too Much Deuterium?
A new study appears to solve a 35-year-old puzzle about the distribution of deuterium in the Milky Way, but poses new questions about how stars and galaxies are formed.
- Planetary Science
Doggone! Pluto gets a planetary demotion
The solar system has only eight planets, and Pluto isn't one of them, according to the first-ever definition of a planet, approved last week by the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union.
- Astronomy
Spiral galaxy in the young universe
Astronomers have identified a galaxy that had already begun to resemble the modern Milky Way when the universe was only 3 billion years old, one-fifth of its current age.
- Astronomy
Enlightened: Dark matter spotted after cosmic crash
In the aftermath of a cosmic crash between two galaxies, researchers say they've detected invisible dark matter for the first time.
- Astronomy
Cosmic bigness
Astronomers have found the largest structures ever discovered in the universe.
