Space

Planetary Science

Revisiting a forgotten planet

Engineers are readying a NASA spacecraft for a May 11 launch to Mercury, one of the least-explored planets in the solar system.

Astronomy

Nudging asteroid fragments toward Earth

New computer simulations detail how fragments of asteroids travel to Earth and rain down as meteorites.

Astronomy

Invisible Universe

X-ray astronomy opens a new window on the most energetic cosmic events.

Planetary Science

Radio link may hamper a Titan probe

A recently discovered communications problem could prevent the Huygens probe from relaying all of its precious data when it parachutes through the cloud-bedecked atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in 2004.

Astronomy

Deepest Vision Yet: Hubble takes ultralong look at the cosmos

Astronomers unveiled the deepest visible-light portrait of the universe ever taken, a million-second-long exposure by the Hubble Space Telescope that includes near-infrared images of what appear to be the most-distant galaxies known.

Planetary Science

A New Flight Plan

President Bush recently unveiled an ambitious plan for a manned mission to Mars, using the moon as a testing area and stepping-stone, but for many planetary scientists the moon is a desirable destination in and of itself.

Planetary Science

Red Planet Makes a Splash: Rover finds gush of evidence for past water

A robotic rover on Mars has gathered what scientists are calling the best evidence to date that liquid water once flowed on the Red Planet.

Astronomy

Pulsar pas de deux

Astronomers have for the first time discovered two pulsars orbiting each other, offering the chance for new precision tests of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Astronomy

Wrenching Findings: Homing in on dark energy

In an analysis of a group of distant supernovas, astronomers have found hints that dark energy is distributed uniformly throughout space.

Astronomy

Finding the star that was

Sifting through archival images, astronomers have identified the star whose explosive demise was recorded by telescopes last year.

Planetary Science

A view of Mars, European style

Although the Mars lander Beagle 2 is presumed dead, its mother craft, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, has transmitted its first data from a polar orbit about the Red Planet.

Astronomy

Bare-Naked Galaxies

A decade's worth of observations is spotlighting how the vast sea of gas surrounding a cluster of galaxies can alter the shape of a galaxy plowing through it.