Space
- Planetary Science
A World Unveiled: Crème brûlée on Titan
Penetrating the orange haze of a frigid, alien world, a space probe parachuted onto Saturn's moon Titan and unexpectedly came face-to-face with terrain that looks a lot like Earth.
- Astronomy
Stars in the dust
The dusty disks surrounding three nearby stars show that they played host to massive collisions between asteroid-like objects as recently as 100 years ago.
- Astronomy
Zooming in on a great void
New X-ray observations provide the most detailed view yet of the environment near a supermassive black hole.
- Astronomy
The Hole Story
New evidence suggests that supermassive black holes have an impact on the evolution of galaxies that goes far beyond their gravitational grasp.
- Astronomy
Ultimate Retro: Modern echoes of the early universe
Two teams of astronomers have for the first time detected the surviving notes of a cosmic symphony created just after the Big Bang, when the universe was a foggy soup of matter and radiation.
- Astronomy
Ring robber
Images taken by the Cassini spacecraft provide graphic evidence of Saturn's moon Prometheus stealing particles from the planet's narrow F ring.
- Astronomy
A dwarf with a disk
The Hubble Space Telescope has examined in unprecedented detail a ring of debris around a star that could be the nearest and youngest known home for planets outside the solar system.
- Astronomy
Young and Near: Baby galaxies roam our backyard
An ultraviolet-detecting satellite has found that youthful versions of massive galaxies like the Milky Way may be only a cosmic stone's throw away.
- Astronomy
People, Not Robots: Panel favors shuttle mission to Hubble
Sharply challenging NASA on the issue of safety in space, a National Academy of Sciences panel has recommended that the agency send astronauts to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope rather than send a robotic device.
- Astronomy
Disks of Dust: Planet-stuff surrounds other sunlike stars
Two orbiting observatories for the first time are homing in on planetary debris circling sunlike stars.
- Astronomy
Gamma view of a big blast
Astronomers have for the first time used extremely high-energy gamma rays to image a celestial body.
- Astronomy
Explosive Tales
Four hundred years after the explosion of the Kepler supernova, the last such stellar eruption in our galaxy, astronomers have examined the supernova's remnant with state-of-the-art telescopes that view it in infrared, optical, and X-ray light.
