The Top 13 Space Stories of 2006

The Top 13 Space Stories of 2006

The makings of life in space, dark matter in the spotlight, the first inflatable space station, and more

3 Cosmic Collision Brings Dark Matter Into View A violent collision has turned up the most direct evidence yet of dark matter...

10 Pluto DemotedPluto now falls under the quaint designation "dwarf planet"...

13 Probe Snaps Baby Picture of the Cosmos
A detailed snapshot of what the universe was like as a trillionth-of-a-second-old newborn...

22 Methane Rain Falls Mainly on Titan's PlainThe Huygens probe made a splat. "It landed in mud"...

45 Alien Planets Get Smaller, Fatter, Faster, and Hotter
This year ushered some of the oddest extrasolar plaents ever found...

48 Nearby Universe MappedAstrophysicists have produced the most detailed full-sky map of the nearby universe...

51 Ice Volcanoes Seen On Saturnian Moon
NASA's Cassini probe showed a geyser shooting jets of water and fine icy particles hundreds of miles into space...

56 Comet Dust Records Solar System Chaos
One-third of a milligram of dust from comet Wild 2 landed on Earth last January...

67 Complex Organic Molecules Formed in Outer SpaceAstronomers have identified eight new complex molecules in space...

75 Astro-Hotel LaunchedBigelow Aerospace last July launched Genesis 1, the first inflatable space station...

93 Renegade Planet Pair Defy ExplanationA pair of celestial objects circling one another have fed a growing debate over the dividing line between planets and stars...

96 Strange Swirls Spotted at Venus's PoleVenus is Earth's near-twin in size and mass, yet bafflingly different in other particulars...

100 Saturn SunburstThe Cassini spacecraft captured an extraordinary backlit image of Saturn and its gossamer rings...