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Ever since astronauts returned from another world, scientists have been mystified by some of the moon rocks they brought back. Now one of the mysteries has been solved. "We learned a great deal about the sun by going to the moon," said Don Burnett, Genesis principal investigator at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "Now, with our Genesis data, we are turning the tables, using the solar wind to better understand lunar processes." Ansgar Grimberg from ETH Institute of Astronomy in Zurich and coworkers analyzed the composition of neon in a metallic glass exposed on NASA's Genesis mission. The team's...

The moment a crack forms in a piece of glass, it is prone to spread. That’s because although glass is very strong and resistant to deformation, it lacks the toughness that metals like aluminum and steel have. Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, report that they have devised a new type of metallic glass that is as strong as glass, but as tough as steel — the toughest of all metals. “Typically with materials it’s very hard to get both toughness and strength; either you get one or the other,” said Marios...