Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Twist: X’s may mark spots where black holes merge
If whacked by a companion black hole, a big, jet-emitting black hole may spew superhot plasma in a new, crosswise direction.
- Astronomy
An assault on comets
Over the next few years, a trio of comet missions, one of which was launched recently, promises to provide the closet look yet at the core of these icy relics from the formation of the solar system.
- Astronomy
Moveable Feast: Milky Way dines on its neighbors
Astronomers have found new evidence that the Milky Way is a cannibal, devouring streams of stars from its nearest galactic neighbors.
- Astronomy
Pluto or bust?
A new National Research Council report may revive plans to send a spacecraft to explore Pluto and its neighborhood.
- Astronomy
Dying star illuminates its own shroud
Images of a planetary nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 but only recently assembled as a color composite, show a shroud of material cast off and ionized by the dying, sunlike star Henize 3-401.
- Astronomy
Chandra eyes low-temperature black hole
An observatory in space has detected the coolest black hole yet found
- Planetary Science
Life on Europa: A possible energy source
New evidence supports the notion that Jupiter's moon Europa contains an ocean beneath its icy surface, and a planetary scientist has proposed a novel way that Europa could be getting the energy required to sustain life within that ocean.
- Astronomy
X-ray observatory captures a rare supernova
Astronomers have obtained the first portrait of X-ray emission from a rare, so-called Ic supernova.
- Astronomy
Let There Be Spin
X-ray outbursts from two different pairs of stars in our Milky Way are providing clues about how the most rapidly rotating stars in the universe got their spin.
- Planetary Science
Pristine fragments of asteroid breakup
Planetary scientists have for the first time precisely dated a collision that smashed an asteroid into fragments.
- Astronomy
Hubble Space Telescope: Eye wide open
Two months after the failure of a fourth gyroscope shut it down, and 3 weeks after a shuttle crew paid it a service call, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business.
- Astronomy
Planetary System in the Making? Stellar eclipse hints at planet-forming debris
Astronomers reported the first evidence that a young star is periodically eclipsed by a stream of debris, possibly an orbiting belt of asteroids held in place by a massive, unseen planet.
