All Stories by Christopher Crockett
- Astronomy
Nearly starless galaxies found in nearby cluster
Astronomers have found 47 galaxies with relatively few stars, something not predicted by any galaxy formation theories.
- Planetary Science
Water arrived on Earth earlier than thought
Ancient meteorites from the asteroid Vesta indicate that Earth’s water was available before planet formed.
- Astronomy
A musician composes a solar soundtrack
Robert Alexander combines life long passions of both music and astronomy to uncover solar secrets.
- Physics
Complete double rainbow encircles Australian town
A photographer in a helicopter captured a double circular rainbow while flying around a storm near Perth, Australia.
- Planetary Science
‘Mars Rover Curiosity’ chronicles robot’s journey
Engineer Rob Manning recounts the decade of victories and setbacks that preceded Curiosity’s landing on Mars.
- Planetary Science
Surprises lurk inside a Saturn moon
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finds possible ocean or football-shaped core inside Mimas.
- Astronomy
Nearby galaxy might explain what tore apart universe’s hydrogen
A local galaxy is leaking enough ultraviolet light to ionize surrounding hydrogen, which could explain how the earliest galaxies transformed the universe.
- Astronomy
High-energy radiation from stellar explosions explained
The dance of a stellar duo might explain why some novas emit gamma rays.
- Astronomy
Water found on Neptune-sized world
Just four times as wide as Earth, HAT-P-11b is the smallest exoplanet known to store water in its atmosphere.
- Cosmology
Gravitational wave discovery gives way to Milky Way dust
New polarization maps from the Planck satellite suggest that the BICEP2 announcement this year of primordial gravitational waves might be due entirely to dust in our galaxy.
- Astronomy
Enormous black hole resides at core of tiny galaxy
A small galaxy stores 15 percent of its mass in a black hole, suggesting compact galaxies might be shreds of once larger galaxies.
- Astronomy
Tweak to dark matter may explain Milky Way mystery
Dark matter weakly interacting with light in the early universe might have prevented satellite galaxies from forming around Milky Way, astronomers propose.
