Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Astronomy

    Embracing the Dark Side

    Ten years after researchers discovered that the expansion of the universe was speeding up rather than slowing down, cosmologists are still struggling to explain the astonishing finding.

  2. Astronomy

    Four’s a crowd

    Astronomers have found a quartet of stars packed into a region smaller than Jupiter's orbit around the sun.

  3. Astronomy

    Gravity at play: A double lens

    Astronomers have discovered an extraordinarily rare double cosmic mirage.

  4. Astronomy

    Case of the misshapen disk

    A deformed disk around a young star may have gotten its swept-back appearance as the result of a collision with a dense gas cloud.

  5. Astronomy

    X-raying a galactic jet set

    The deepest X-ray portrait ever taken of the galaxy Centaurus A highlights its jets and activity around its supermassive black hole.

  6. Astronomy

    Second Time Around: Some old stars may make new planets

    Two old stars appear to have been rejuvenated and may be undergoing a new wave of planet formation hundreds of millions to billions of years after young stars normally do.

  7. Astronomy

    Heavy Find: Weighty neutron stars may rule out exotic core

    Neutron stars may be the weirdest stars in the universe, but they don't seem to be very strange, a weighty new report finds.

  8. Astronomy

    Run of the Mill: Finding galactic building blocks in early universe

    Astronomers have discovered 27 faint, run-of-the-mill galaxies from the early universe that may be some of the building blocks of giant galaxies such as the Milky Way.

  9. Planetary Science

    A sunlike star’s early development

    A new infrared portrait of an embryonic sunlike star reveals an early, crucial step in the process of planet formation.

  10. Astronomy

    One star, five planets

    With the discovery of a fifth planet circling the nearby star 55 Cancri, astronomers have found the most abundant—and heaviest—planetary system beyond the sun's.

  11. Astronomy

    Flare-Up: Comet Holmes’ surprise bloom

    Comet 17P/Holmes abruptly brightened last month, blossoming into a naked eye object.

  12. Astronomy

    Ray Tracing: Energetic cosmic rays linked to giant black holes

    New observations suggest that ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays originate in the cores of nearby galaxies harboring supermassive black holes.