Astronomy
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Astronomy
Black Hole Life Preserver: Don’t get sucked in without one
By temporarily counteracting a black hole's tremendous tidal forces, a proposed black hole life preserver would slightly lengthen the life and shorten the agony of anyone exploring one of these gravitational beasts.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Ulysses makes a return trip
Just as the sun has reached the stormy peak of its 11-year activity cycle, the European Space Agency's Ulysses spacecraft has begun its second and final pass over the sun's poles.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Magnetic-mapping mission resurrected
The European Space Agency successfully launched Cluster II, a group of four spacecraft that will fly in tandem to generate a three-dimensional map of Earth's magnetosphere.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Spirograph in the sky
Some 2,000 light-years from Earth, an elderly star has ejected its outer layers to form a puffy, gaseous cocoon that resembles a "spirograph" pattern.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
It’s Raining Stardust: Spacecraft measures record amount of stellar debris
Stardust is sneaking into our solar system at three times the rate that it had just 4 years ago, and the influx of dust could triple through 2010.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Stellar speed limit
Ripples in the fabric of space-time may put the brakes on the fastest-spinning stars in the universe and prevent them from flying apart.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Swallow Thy Neighbor: Strong evidence of galactic cannibalism
Astronomers have found a compelling case of a large galaxy caught in the act of eating a small fry.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Repulsive Astronomy: Strengthening the case for dark energy
Astronomers have found new evidence that a mysterious substance, dubbed dark energy, is ripping the cosmos apart, causing the universe to expand at an ever-faster rate.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Taking the Crab’s pulse
Simultaneous recordings of a pulsar's radio emissions and its visible beam shed new light on the seemingly chaotic variations in the intensities of those emissions.
By Ben Harder -
Astronomy
Sky Prospecting: Surveying the universe’s middle-aged galaxies
With a new sky survey, astronomers can tell the story of what happened during the universe’s middle years—about 7 billion years ago.
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Astronomy
Storms from the Sun
Interested in space weather and the effect of solar storms on Earth? The National Academies Press Web site offers the full text of the fascinating book Storms from the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather, written by Michael J. Carlowicz and Ramon E. Lopez. Learn more about bizarre events on Earth caused by solar […]
By Science News -
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.
By Ron Cowen