All Stories by Ron Cowen
- 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.
- Astronomy
Beryllium data confirm stars’ age
Measuring trace amounts of beryllium in two elderly stars, astronomers have found additional evidence that the first stars in the universe formed less than 200 million years after the Big Bang.
- Planetary Science
A really cool map
A new infrared image of Saturn's rings provides the most detailed temperature map ever taken of these icy particles.
- Astronomy
Rocky Road: Planet hunting gets closer to Earth
Astronomers have discovered the three lightest planets known outside the solar system, moving researchers closer to the goal of finding extrasolar planets that resemble Earth.
- Astronomy
Super Portrait: X-ray telescope eyes supernova remnant
Trained on Cassiopeia A for 11.5 days, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has taken the most detailed portrait ever recorded of any supernova remnant.
- Planetary Science
Saturn Watch: Cassini finds two new moons and lightning
The Cassini spacecraft has detected two moons that may be the smallest ever found around Saturn as well as changes in the character of lightning first detected in Saturn's atmosphere in the early 1980s.
