Live coverage: Europe’s Mars mission launches

The European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft has run out of fuel and will burn up in the atmosphere of Venus in January after a successful eight-year mission.

Strange X-rays from the naked eye star gamma-Cas have been confirmed to come from matter falling onto a hidden white dwarf companion, resolving a fifty-year astronomical mystery.

The geologic shape of what were once shorelines through Mars’ northern plains 3.4 billion years ago convinces scientists that two large meteorites – hitting the planet millions of years apart – triggered a pair of mega-tsunamis. These gigantic waves, likely 120 metres high, forever scarred the Martian landscape and yielded evidence of cold, salty oceans.