Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analysing individual particles of Martian soil. Dr Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, will discuss the team’s analysis at an ESA meeting on 7 February 2012.

An international team of researchers has measured neutral "alien" particles entering our solar system from interstellar space. A suite of studies published in the Astrophysical Journal provide a first look at the constituents of the interstellar medium, the matter between star systems, and how they interact with our heliosphere.

New studies has shown that vulcanic activity on the Jovian moon Io, influenes Jupiters magnetic field, and afre dicerectly responsible for changes in the superplanets aruroral activities.

The formation of rapidly rotating neutron stars called millisecond pulsars is the result of stellar cannibalism where matter flows from a donor star to an accreting pulsar in a binary system. What happens to the spin of millisecond pulsars when reaching the end of their mass-accretion phase?