Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Astronomy

    Dusty times on Mars

    On July 1, a dust cloud emerged from Mars' Hellas Basin, and 3 days later it had become 1,800 kilometers wide, roughly one-fourth the Red Planet’s diameter.

  2. Astronomy

    A new receiver for alien broadcasts

    A $12.5 million grant will help build the world's largest telescope designed to search for radio broadcasts from alien civilizations.

  3. Astronomy

    Taking a census of brown dwarfs

    Researchers have completed the most thorough census to date of brown dwarfs in stellar clusters and have confirmed earlier findings about these failed stars.

  4. Astronomy

    Revved-up antics of a pulsar jet

    Flailing like an out-of-control fire hose, a mammoth jet of charged particles gushing from a collapsed star is varying its shape and brightness more rapidly than any other jet known in the heavens.

  5. Astronomy

    Supernova Spectacular

    Studying starburst galaxies, relatively nearby galaxies that are undergoing a tremendous rate of star formation, may reveal how elliptical galaxies arose and black holes grew in the early universe.

  6. Astronomy

    Record Breaker: A planet from the early universe

    Astronomers have found the oldest and most distant planet known in the universe.

  7. Astronomy

    Timing a Moonrise: Van Gogh painting put on the calendar

    Astronomical detectives suggest that van Gogh painted the picture now known as "Moonrise" in 1889, capturing the rising moon as it appeared at 9:08 p.m. local mean time on July 13.

  8. Physics

    Through the Looking Glass

    A proposed universe of unseen material, where every ordinary particle has a shadowy counterpart, could explain several conundrums in cosmology.

  9. Astronomy

    Telescope unveils a stellar deception

    A heavenly masquerade may shed light on the nature of astrophysical jets—the beams of material spewed by a wide variety of celestial objects.

  10. Astronomy

    Stellar Top: Astronomers find a squashed star

    Astronomers have found a rapidly spinning, squashed star that is more than 1.5 times as wide as it is tall.

  11. Astronomy

    Telescope spies a galactic satellite

    A huge gas cloud once considered a remnant from when the Milky Way or nearby galaxies formed is, in fact, a satellite of our galaxy.

  12. Astronomy

    Mystery in the Middle

    The Milky Way's core is loaded with seemingly young stars, which have no business being there.