All Stories by Ron Cowen
- Astronomy
Gammas from Heaven
An orbiting gamma-ray observatory, set for launch next spring, will seek out the most violent events in the cosmos.
- Astronomy
Odd Couples: Big black holes challenge star theory
The discovery of a black hole almost 16 times as massive as the sun, and the possible discovery of an even heavier one, challenge theories of how such black holes form.
- Astronomy
Record-breaking supernova
A newly discovered supernova, 100 billion times as bright as the sun, is the most luminous ever recorded.
- Planetary Science
Portrait of a Martian crater
An ultrasharp image of part of Mars' Gale crater shows waterborne sediments and volcanic ash.
- Astronomy
Motion of two nearby galaxies clouds the picture
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way, but are relative newcomers passing by for the first time.
- Planetary Science
Titan: Land of lakes—and drizzle
A newly assembled mosaic of radar images of Saturn's moon Titan shows what appear to be hydrocarbon lakes and seas.
- Astronomy
Sunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet’s tail
Images from a spacecraft show a magnetic hurricane from the sun severing a comet's ion tail.
- Planetary Science
Martian rovers survive storm
Three months after being stymied by a planet-wide dust storm, NASA's twin Mars rovers are back in action.
- Astronomy
Match Made in Heaven: Nearby galaxies resemble faraway type
Several nearby galaxies seem nearly identical to some of the remotest galaxies known, offering a glimpse of the era when galaxies first formed.
- Planetary Science
Neptune’s balmy south pole
Neptune's south pole is about 10°C warmer than any other place on the planet.
- Astronomy
Sputnik + 50
The launch of Sputnik 1, 50 years ago, ushered in a scientific and technological revolution, but dreams of the human conquest of space have faded.
- Planetary Science
Muddying the Water? Orbiter drains confidence from fluid story of Mars
New images of Mars diminish the evidence that liquid water has flowed on some parts of the planet, but bolster the case in other places.
