European scientists said on Monday they had found tantalizing clues to back theories that Venus -- Earth's cursed sister -- has active volcanoes.

Mapping of the desolate surface of Venus shows the second planet from the Sun to be studded with more than a thousand volcanoes.

The amount of heat-trapping pollution the world spewed rose again last year by 3 percent. So scientists say it's now unlikely that global warming can be limited to a couple of degrees, which is an international goal.

The overwhelming majority of the increase was from China, the world's biggest carbon dioxide polluter. Of the planet's top 10 polluters, the United States and Germany were the only countries that reduced their carbon dioxide emissions.

A New Zealand researcher Monday claimed to have solved the riddle of a mystery South Pacific island shown on Google Earth and world maps which does not exist, blaming a whaling ship from 1876.

The phantom landmass in the Coral Sea is shown as Sandy Island on Google Earth and Google maps and is supposedly midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia.

A few hundred people marched in a peaceful demonstration Saturday for "climate justice" in Doha, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries are debating about how to slow global warming and help protect the most vulnerable countries from rising seas and other impacts of climate change.

Waving banners saying "Stop climate change" and "Arabs reduce emissions," the well-behaved crowd marched along the Qatari capital's Corniche, a waterfront walkway lined by gleaming skyscrapers.

Australia has unveiled a new radio telescope in the remote outback that will give the world a vastly improved view of the sun and much faster warnings on massive solar storms.

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope will detect flares on the sun's surface that could damage communication satellites, electricity power grids and GPS navigation systems, director Steven Tingay said Saturday.

Astronomers are reporting a find that challenges traditional theories as to how rocky planets -- such as Earth -- are formed.

Besides Earth, our solar system has three other rocky planets: Mercury, Venus and Mars. They have a solid surface and core of heavy metals, and differ from planets that are large spinning bodies of gas, like Jupiter or Saturn.

The chances of hitting the U.N.'s global warming target are diminishing, but the goal can still be met if greenhouse-gas emissions fall by 15 percent by 2020, scientists said on Friday.

In a study issued at the world climate talks in Doha, they cautioned against mounting pessimism that the U.N.'s objective of curbing warming to a safer two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is now out of reach.

The melting of polar ice caps raised sea levels by nearly half an inch (11 millimeters) over the last two decades, scientists said Thursday, calling it the most definitive measure yet of the impact of climate change.

There have been more than 30 previous estimates of whether and how much the ice caps are shrinking. But the numbers were often vague, with wide ranges, and different studies sometimes contradicted each other, the researchers said.

Scientists Thursday announced new evidence that Mercury, the planet orbiting nearest the Sun, hosts massive caches of ice and revealed new information on how water reached our solar system's inner planets.

"The new data indicate the water ice in Mercury's polar regions, if spread over an area the size of Washington DC, would be more than two miles (3.2 kilometers) thick," said David Lawrence, a researcher participating with NASA's mission to study Mercury.

A small humanoid robot that can talk will be sent into space to provide conversational company for a Japanese astronaut on a six-month mission, according to new plans.

The miniature robot will arrive at the International Space Station next summer, a few months ahead of astronaut Koichi Wakata, Japan's Kibo (Hope) Robot Project office said Thursday.