Astronomy

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.

Astronomy

Cosmic Melody

An astronomer has converted fluctuations in the density of the early universe—the seeds of the first galaxies and stars—into audible sound.

Astronomy

3-D solar eruptions

Solar physicists have developed a technique to obtain the three-dimensional structure of coronal mass ejections by using two-dimensional images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

Astronomy

One of Hubble’s Tools Fails: Observatory loses a sharp ultraviolet eye

With the failure last week of an instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have lost their only sharp ultraviolet eye on the universe.

Astronomy

Old stars shed light on young Milky Way

Analyzing the composition of 70 of the oldest stars in the galaxy—the largest such sample so far—scientists have found new evidence that a generation of short-lived stars that died explosively must have preceded this elderly population and that the oldest part of the Milky Way originated not as a single component, but as bits and pieces that may have taken several hundred million years to form and coalesce.

Astronomy

Explosive News: Telescopes find signs of gentler gamma-ray bursts

Astronomers appear to have discovered an unexpected population of low-energy gamma-ray bursts, and they could be 10 times more numerous than previously-known higher-energy bursts.

Astronomy

Young star’s glow suggests planet find

The X-ray outburst of a young, sunlike star might provide new insights about planet formation.

Astronomy

Universal Truths: Distant quasars reveal content, age of universe

Using quasars as searchlights on the distant universe, astronomers have mapped the distribution of gas between galaxies with unprecedented precision, allowing precise determinations of the age of the universe.

Astronomy

Cassini eyes Iapetus

Only a few days after it entered orbit around Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft captured an image of Saturn's split- personality moon Iapetus.

Astronomy

Two newly found space molecules

Researchers have detected two new organic chemicals in a large interstellar cloud.

Astronomy

End of the Line for Hubble?

With a space shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope now canceled, astronomers are pondering how to best use the flying observatory during its final years.