The Most Amazing Space Stories of the Week!
Two of the raised treads on the left middle wheel of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars suffered breaks in early 2017. One of the breaks is visible as a partially detached section at the top of the wheel, seen here by Curiosity's arm-mounted Mars Hand Lens Imager.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A Dragon returns, North Korea tests a rocket engine, a wheel breaks on Mars and a spacewalk streak begins — it's Space.com's top news stories of the week.

Transition begins

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill authorizing a $19.5 billion budget for NASA in 2017, setting its priorities for the year. Vice President Mike Pence also announced that he would head a re-established National Space Council, which will advise the president on space issues. [Full Story: President Trump Signs NASA Authorization Bill]

Dragon came back

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, bringing more than 2 tons of science experiments and gear back from the International Space Station. Officials retrieved the spacecraft and had time-sensitive scientific samples in the lab within 48 hours. [Full Story: SpaceX Dragon Capsule Returns to Earth with Ocean Splashdown]

Uncertainty engine

North Korea announced that they had performed a ground test of a powerful rocket engine suited to lifting satellites — or missiles — off the ground. [Full Story: North Korea Tests Rocket Engine: Is It for Satellites or Ballistic Missiles?]

Wear and tear

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has two small breaks in the treads of one of its six heavy wheels. Curiosity has already lasted well beyond its original two-year mission lifetime, and it should be able to continue unhindered by this latest wear and tear. [Full Story: Breaks Found in Curiosity Mars Rover's Wheel]

(Tiny) thrusters, on!

New, dime-size ion thrusters could keep constellations of small satellites in orbit — or, working together, propel astronauts to Mars. The newly-developed "thruster chips" eject ions drawn from a salt-based propellant solution. [Full Story: Dime-Size Thrusters Could Propel Satellites, Spacecraft]

No laughing matter

The mysterious dark matter seems to make up a large percentage of the matter in the universe, but — perplexingly — early galaxies seem to not have very much of it. [Full Story: Lack of 'Dark Matter' in Early Galaxies Perplexes Astronomers]

Colorful cocoon

Three observant satellites, called Swarm, have mapped the complex magnetic field of Earth's crust and outer mantle, known as its lithosphere. The signal is tiny, but illuminating about the Earth's history. (And one city in Africa has a mysteriously sharp and strong magnetic spike.) [Full Story: Earth's Magnetic Cocoon Mapped in Extreme Detail]

Maybe no flow

Mars' famous dark streaks, thought to be caused by briny flows of water, may come from bone-dry landslides instead, new work suggests. [Full Story: Mars' Dark Streaks May Be Caused by Dry Landslides, Not Water]

But then again: Massive Martian Slopes May Harbor Ice

Going way back

A radio telescope that could probe the dawn of the universe's first stars and galaxies received a new grant, boosting its potential size from 240 huge antenna dishes to 350 — letting it look even further back in time. [Full Story: Telescope Eyeing Universe's First Stars Gets (Another) Big Boost]

Out there

Two astronauts completed a spacewalk Friday (March 24) to help prepare the International Space Station for future commercial spacecraft to dock and bring crew. It is the first of three spacewalks in a row, the third of which will be the station's 200th spacewalk. [Full Story: Space Station Astronauts Poised to Tackle Three-Spacewalk Streak]

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