Details: The new report, known as the Arctic Report Card, is a peer-reviewed document produced by dozens of researchers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) oversaw the research and the report's release at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington.

Findings: The report found that the Arctic continues to warm at about twice the rate of the rest of the globe, resulting in less snow and ice to reflect incoming sunlight.

• The annual average air temperature across the Arctic from October 2017 through September 2018 was the 2nd-warmest such period on record, just behind the same period in 2015–2016.
• All 5 of the hottest years on record in the Arctic have come since 2014. Records extend back to 1900. "The multi-year persistence of record and near-record warmth since 2014 is unlike any other period on record," the report states.
• As ocean temperatures increase, toxin-producing phytoplankton have increased in number and geographical range, leading to a steep rise in paralytic shellfish poisoning in humans, the report says. Alaska now has one of the highest incidences of this shellfish poisoning in the world.
• Populations of reindeer and caribou are declining, with a drop of 56% from a total estimated population of 4.7 million to about 2.1 million over the past two decades. The largest declines have been seen in populations across the U.S. and Canada.

Startling sea ice statistics:

• The Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner, younger and more prone to melting each summer.
• In March 1985, sea ice that had survived at least 4 summers made up 16% of the Arctic ice pack at winter maximum. In March 2018, it made up less than 1%.
• During 2018, there was an unprecedented mid-winter sea ice loss in the Bering Sea, which shocked scientists. This ocean, which is typically ice-covered at the time, lost an area of ice the size of Idaho during February.

Yes, but: The Trump administration continues to issue climate science reports that show this is an urgent issue to address, while pursuing policies to boost consumption of fossil fuels that cause global warming. This dichotomy was visible at the press conference, when reporters pressed NOAA acting administrator Tim Gallaudet on whether the science agency has communicated its findings to the White House.

Go deeper:

• On climate change, Trump disavows own scientists
• Trump's pipeline of bad climate information
• New climate report warns of increasingly dire risks to U.S.

• The information collected by Voyager 2 will also be useful to planners of future human spaceflight missions, since journeys that expose astronauts to cosmic rays can pose health risks.

The details: NASA said data from instruments aboard Voyager 2 show that on Nov. 5 the spacecraft exited the heliosphere (the protective shield of particles and powerful magnetic fields caused by the sun).

• Scientists detailed their findings at a press conference at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday, including new data from the spacecraft's Plasma Science Experiment, or PLS.
• The PLS is used to detect the speed, density, temperature, pressure and flux of the solar wind, and on Nov. 5 it showed a steep decline in solar wind particles. The PLS has not shown any solar wind flow since, which confirms scientists' judgment that it has left the heliosphere.
• Other instruments aboard the spacecraft also showed an uptick in powerful cosmic rays, which scientists expected to see once the spacecraft entered interstellar space.

The backdrop: Both Voyager 1 and 2 launched in 1977, and scientists said they hope they will last 50 years.

What they're saying: “Even though Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012, it did so at a different place and a different time, and without the PLS data. So we’re still seeing things that no one has seen before,” said John Richardson, a principal research scientist at MIT, in a press release.

• “One of the great things about Voyager is it keeps surprising us,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at Caltech in Pasadena, California, at the press conference.
• “I like to say that Voyager 1 and 2 are pretty healthy if you consider them senior citizens," said Suzanna Dodd, JPL's director for the Interplanetary Network Directorate.

Yes, but: While the probes have entered interstellar space, they have not left the solar system. It would take Voyager 2 as many as 30,000 more years to reach the boundary of the solar system, NASA said.

Details: Data obtained from the spacecraft’s two spectrometers show that molecules containing oxygen and hydrogen bonded together, known as hydroxyls, are present on the asteroid. Researchers involved in the project think that hydroxyls are located across the asteroid in water-containing clay minerals.

• This revelation means that water was present at some time on Bennu’s parent body, which was a much larger asteroid, according to NASA. This confirms scientists' suspicions about this asteroid, which made it a prime target for a mission in the first place. Bennu is considered to be too small to currently host liquid water.

What's next: OSIRIS-REx will attempt to land on the asteroid to retrieve samples and return them to Earth in 2023. Such analysis could greatly improve our understanding of asteroid composition as well as prove concepts that could be used in new industries, such as space mining.

Go deeper: NASA spacecraft arrives at near-Earth asteroid Bennu