Space
- Astronomy
Distant Dust: Asteroid belt or boiling comet?
A swarm of warm dust surrounding a star 41 light-years from Earth may be a sign of the closest extrasolar analog to the solar system's asteroid belt.
- Planetary Science
Comet mission loses some focus
A camera aboard the Deep Impact spacecraft, set to fire a projectile into the icy heart of Comet Tempel-1 on July 4, is slightly out of focus.
- Planetary Science
A Martian haven for life?
Images taken by two Mars spacecraft suggest that a volcano on the Red Planet erupted long ago at the confluence of two riverbeds, indicating that the region had two of the prequisites for life: heat and water.
- Astronomy
Dark Influence
A study of galaxy clusters tests whether dark matter particles can collide with each other, while other observations show that dark matter doesn't behave as expected near the centers of galaxies.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Primitive: Old star sheds light on early stellar formation
Astronomers have found one of the most chemically primitive stars known, dating to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
- Planetary Science
A moon with atmosphere
Magnetic measurements by the Cassini spacecraft have revealed that Saturn's moon Enceladus has a tenuous atmosphere containing water vapor.
- Astronomy
Stellar Question: Extrasolar planet or failed star?
A tiny dot of light next to a young, sunlike star might be the long-sought image of an extrasolar planet.
- Astronomy
Moon story waxes fuller
A new analysis may have put the final piece in the puzzle of how the Moon formed.
- Planetary Science
Dusty rejuvenation
The Mars rover Spirit recently had its dirty solar arrays cleaned off, possibly by a dust devil, allowing the craft to generate nearly as much energy as it did when it first landed on the Red Planet in January 2004.
- Astronomy
Star Packed: Super cluster is first to be detected in Milky Way
Astronomers have detected the most massive and densest cluster of young stars ever detected in the Milky Way, a finding that could shed light on how stars formed in the early universe.
- Planetary Science
Assault on Mars
A Mars rover has discovered a patch of soil that's the saltiest place known on the Red Planet, an indication that water once coursed through the region.
-
