Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Astronomy

    Core Finding: Latest, oddest planet hints at how orbs form

    A newly discovered planet beyond the solar system has the most massive core of any planet known.

  2. Planetary Science

    A Grand Slam

    A 372-kilogram copper projectile released from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully slammed into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, producing some heavenly fireworks.

  3. Astronomy

    Rumblings from a dead star

    The burned-out cinder left behind when a massive Milky Way star exploded recently underwent its own outburst.

  4. Planetary Science

    Pebbles from Heaven: Tracking planets in the making

    Recording radio waves from the region around a young star, astronomers have for the first time documented the making pebbles, a key step in the rocky road to planethood.

  5. Planetary Science

    Flashy news from Mars

    A streak across the Martian sky observed by the rover Spirit was most likely a meteor associated with a comet called Wiseman-Skiff.

  6. Astronomy

    Panning Distant Dust

    Astronomers are using hundreds of newly detected debris disks found around a variety of nearby stars to hunt for planets and learn about the evolution of our solar system.

  7. Planetary Science

    Opportunity rolls out of Purgatory

    After being stuck for nearly 5 weeks, the Mars rover Opportunity has freed itself from a sand trap on the Red Planet.

  8. Planetary Science

    Planet Hunt Strikes Rock: Hot kin of Earth orbits nearby star

    Astronomers have found the closest known cousin to Earth, a solid world just 15 light-years beyond the solar system.

  9. Astronomy

    Making waves

    Locked in a deadly embrace, two white dwarf stars may be the strongest source of gravitational waves now flooding our galaxy.

  10. Astronomy

    The supernova that wasn’t

    A brilliant stellar outburst once thought to be a supernova explosion actually left the star intact.

  11. Astronomy

    Andromeda gets bigger

    A new study reveals that the diameter of the Andromeda galaxy's disk spans some 220,000 light-years, three times as big as had been estimated.

  12. Astronomy

    Peering into a disrupted stellar nursery

    A new infrared portrait of the Carina nebula star-forming region shows a clutch of baby stars tucked inside pillars of thick dust.