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Top 10 Space Finds of 2009

10. Star Crust is Ten Billion Times Stronger than Steel

Neutron stars are the second densest objects in the universe after black holes. A teaspoonful of neutron star matter would weigh about a hundred million tons and, unlike normal stars, scientists believe neutron stars have solid outer shells that hold a soup of superdense subatomic particles.

9. Could Jupiter Moon Harbor Fish-Sized Life?

Below its icy crust Jupiter's moon Europa is believed to host a global ocean up to a hundred miles (160 kilometers) deep, with no land to speak of at the surface. And the extraterrestrial ocean is currently being fed more than a hundred times more oxygen than previous models had suggested, according to provocative new research. That amount of oxygen would be enough to support more than just microscopic life-forms: At least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe on Europa, said study author Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

8. 32 New Planets Found Outside our Solar System

The 32 previously unseen planets range from five times the mass of Earth up to eight times the mass of Jupiter. In addition, the new planets were found around different types of stars, challenging existing theories for where and how planets form. Overall, the research suggests that 40 to 60 percent of all planetary systems in the universe contain low-mass planets. Since lower masses most likely mean Earthlike sizes, such planets are considered to be the best candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life.

7. Liquid Water Recently Seen on Mars?

Strange globs seen on the landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander could be the first proof that modern Mars hosts liquid water. This substance is probably saline mud that splashed up as the craft landed, study leader and Phoenix co-investigator Nilton Renno of the University of Michigan told National Geographic News.

6. Most Earthlike Planet Yet Found May Have Liquid Oceans

New measurements of the planet's orbit place it firmly in a region where conditions would be right for liquid water, and thus life as we know it, astronomer Michel Mayor, from Geneva University in Switzerland, announced today. "It lies in the [life-supporting] habitable zone, and it could have an ocean at its surface," Mayor said during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference, being held this week at the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K.

5. Particles Larger Than Galaxies Fill the Universe?

The oldest of the subatomic particles called neutrinos might each encompass a space larger than thousands of galaxies, new simulations suggest. According to quantum mechanics, the "size" of a particle such as a neutrino is defined by a fuzzy range of possible locations. We can only detect these particles when they interact with something such as an atom, which collapses that range into a single point in space and time. For neutrinos created recently, the ranges they can exist in are very, very small. But over the roughly 13.7-billion-year lifetime of the cosmos, "relic" neutrinos have been stretched out by the expansion of the universe, enlarging the range in which each neutrino can exist.

4. MARS LAKE PICTURE: First Proof of Ancient Shores Found

The newfound shore lies along what was once a body of water about the size of North America's Lake Champlain, said the University of Colorado at Boulder team that spotted the feature. Planetary geologist and lead author Gaetano Di Achille said he and his colleagues first spotted hints of the ancient lake in 2007 in sediment data from European Space Agency's Infrared Imaging Surveyor. The now dry lake is thought to be just three billion years old—which would mean the region was watery 300 million years after Mars's warm, wet period is thought to have ended, the team says.

3. Water on the Moon Confirmed by NASA Crashes

In October, NASA crashed a two-ton rocket and the SUV-size LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) into the permanently shadowed crater Cabeus on the moon's south pole. The crashes were part of an effort to kick up evidence of water on the moon. Despite disappointing many amateur astronomers on Earth, who had been expecting to see a giant plume of lunar dust and ice crystals, the moon-water mission was a success, NASA says.

2. Sky Show Tonight: Green "Two-Tailed" Comet Arrives

Comet Lulin is currently sailing through the inner solar system and is getting closer to our home planet, with its nearest approach expected on February 24 (2009). Astronomer Mark Hammergren of Chicago's Adler Planetarium added that the icy body has the potential to do something unexpected. Comet Lulin is arriving from the far reaches of the solar system on a nearly parabolic orbit—"it's almost as if it comes from infinity and goes back out to infinity," he said. This means Lulin could be on its first pass by the sun, so the comet should still be encrusted in "fresh" ices preserved by the freezing environment of the outer solar system, Hammergren said.

1. Sun Oddly Quiet -- Hints at Next "Little Ice Age"?

The sun is the least active it's been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850. The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum. During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers in the Alps engulfed whole villages, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.