Astronomy
- Astronomy
Belt Tightening: Icy orbs are surprisingly small
Objects in the distant reservoir of comets known as the Kuiper belt are intrinsically much brighter, and therefore smaller, than previously thought.
- Astronomy
First Light: Faint object may be youngest star detected
Peeking into the dusty core of a dark cloud seemingly devoid of stars, astronomers have found a faintly glowing body that could be the earliest glimmerings ever recorded from a newborn star.
- Astronomy
More moons for Saturn
With the discovery of two additional moons, the ringed planet now has a retinue of 24 known satellites orbiting it.
- Astronomy
What a blast!
Astronomers have glimpsed a rare, long-lived neutron-star explosion that may represent the burning of carbon just beneath the surface of this superdense star.
- Astronomy
Renegade stars in sun’s neighborhood
Some stars in the neighborhood of the sun may be renegades from the center of our galaxy.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
