All Stories by Ron Cowen
- Planetary Science
Mars Views Hint at Early Land of Lakes
New, high-resolution images unveiled this week not only offer supporting evidence that parts of ancient Mars resembled a land of lakes but also point out prime locations to look for fossils if life ever existed on the Red Planet.
- Astronomy
Messy Findings: Planets encounter a violent world
Some young planets continue to take a beating hundreds of millions of years after they've formed.
- Planetary Science
An early cosmic wallop for life on Earth?
New evidence from lunar meteorites suggests that debris bombarded the moon some 3.9 billion years ago, about the same time that life may have formed on Earth.
- Planetary Science
Mars Rovers: New evidence of past water
Twin rovers on opposite sides of the Red Planet have found additional evidence that liquid water once flowed there.
- Planetary Science
Martian water everywhere
Combining data taken from two craft orbiting Mars with images and spectra collected by one of the Mars rovers, a scientist has found evidence that a body of water greater in area than all the Great Lakes combined once covered the Red Planet.
- Astronomy
Planet Signs? Sifting a dusty disk
Infrared spectra of a disk of debris surrounding the young star Beta Pictoris reveals three distinct bands of dust, suggesting the location of a possible planet flanked by belts of asteroids or comets.
- Astronomy
More space sugar
Astronomers have found a second, colder source of the simple sugar glycoaldehyde in a dust and gas cloud 26,000 light-years from Earth.
- Astronomy
Big Smash: Galaxy clusters in collision
Astronomers have unveiled the most detailed image ever taken of the collision of two clusters of galaxies.
- Planetary Science
Tiny scope spies distant planet
Using a telescope not much bigger than Galileo's, astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a star 500 light-years from Earth.
- Physics
Information, Please
Understanding whether the information swallowed by black holes is destroyed forever may provide physicists with new clues for unifying gravity and quantum theories.
- Astronomy
Sky Lights: Picture might show an extrasolar planet
A faint point of red light may be the first picture ever taken of a planet outside the solar system.
- Astronomy
Crashing Genesis
Scientists are trying to salvage the fragile samples of the solar wind collected by the Genesis spacecraft, which crashed to Earth on Sept. 8 after its parachutes failed to open.
