Update on Hubble Mystery Object
It steadily brightened, then steadily faded in a way like no known variable object. Now astronomers have a tentative distance for it: about 1.8 billion light-years. And it was full of carbon.
Earth Sciences Gain in New NASA Budget
Satellites that look down are the biggest winners, but plans to look — and to go — up and away also do well.
USAF to Track More Sats for Crashes
The debris-spewing smashup of a Russian and an American satellite last February is prompting the Air Force to step up its collision-predicting efforts.
Probing Earth's Gravity in Best Detail Yet
Measure anything really, really accurately, and there's no telling what new things doing this will reveal. Europe's GOCE satellite will map Earth's gravitational field to determine, better than ever before, deep ocean currents. And perhaps much more.
Orbiting Pulsars @ Home
Einstein@Home, a computer screensaver that searches for space-time ripples, will now hunt for pulsars that whip around other stars or black holes. These could put general relativity to its toughest test yet.