NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is homing in on Jupiter, snapping photos to reveal 3-D details of the giant’s stormy atmosphere as the probe heads toward a 2004 rendezvous with Saturn. Astronomers using ultrasensitive light detectors here on Earth reported four new moons orbiting that ringed planet. Researchers studying icy Neptune used a new optical system on the Keck II telescope in Hawaii and discovered an atmosphere even more active than Jupiter’s, with wind speeds up to 900 miles per hour. And based on a survey of six small slices of sky, a team of astronomers says it may have found the outer edge of our solar system, in the Kuiper Belt of icy debris just beyond the orbit of Pluto. The advanced snooping will continue for decades, but at least now astronomers have a better idea of where they can stop looking.
