For the first time, astronomers discovered a planet by observing a slight dimming when it passed in front of its parent star. They also found a system of planets outside our Solar System. Such discoveries brought the total number of known extrasolar planets to 28. Photographs suggested three nearby young stars have planets. Stars with an abundance of heavy elements are most likely to spawn planets.
Most newborn stars have the potential to make planets.
NASA didn't hear from Mars Polar Lander after the spacecraft descended through the Martian atmosphere to the Red Planet's south pole. That followed the loss of a sister spacecraft, Mars Climate Orbiter weeks earlier. In the Orbiter flight, important data hadn't been converted from English units to the metric system. At Jupiter, Galileo snapped the most detailed photos to date of the volcanically active moon Io. Mars Global Surveyor created a detailed three-dimensional map of the Martian surface.