Astronomers Throw Pluto a Bone

(NEWSER) - Having helped install a hometown boy in the White House and ousted its colorful governor, Illinois is next out to save Pluto, the Guardian reports. The state senate blasted the International Astronomical Union’s 2006 decision to demote the erstwhile ninth planet to a “dwarf planet,” and voted unanimously to return to “full planetary status” the orb first sighted in 1930 by a native son, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch adds. More»

Distant Eris may be more like Mercury than Pluto

(NEWSER) - It's been six years since distant Eris was discovered, a small planetoid that led to Pluto losing its planetary status. But since it lies three times further from the sun than Pluto, Eris was very difficult to observe and little was known about it—until now. Last year Eris passed in front of a star, creating a "stellar occultation" that allowed astronomers to turn their telescopes on it and gather large amounts of data. Twenty-six sites tried, but only three telescopes from two locations caught the event. More»

Hubble photos reveal major changes on ex-planet's surface

(NEWSER) - Astronomers haven't been ignoring Pluto since its demotion to "dwarf planet" in 2006, particularly now that it's putting on a color show for scientists. Newly processed images from the Hubble Space Telescope have given scientists their best view yet of Pluto, which is 20% redder than it used to be. The new hue, which changed dramatically in a single 2-year period beginning in 2000, is believed due to changes in surface ice as Pluto enters a new phase of its orbit. More»

Spacecraft New Horizons sees storms and supervolcanoes

(NEWSER) - New Horizons, the robotic probe destined to reach Pluto in 2015, took some exciting photos when it flew within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter last February. Data from the fruitful detour for NASA’s fastest spacecraft will be published in Science this month. Highlights include photos of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and a supervolcano erupting, CNET reports. More»

From the unfathomably small to the mind-blowingly huge, the most significant breakthroughs

(NEWSER) - The invention of the wheel was pretty good. Fire, even better. But what has science done for us lately? USA Today lists the top 25 scientific discoveries; here are the top 10:

1. Accelerating universe
2. Human genome
3. Climate accord