Astronomy
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Astronomy
There’s life in the old galaxies yet
An unexpectedly large number of supermassive black holes in old galaxy clusters suggests these elderly groupings of galaxies aren't as quiescent as had been expected.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Are solar eruptions triggered a loopy way?
Astronomers have identified a new solar mechanism that may explain some coronal mass ejections.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Black holes and their galaxies: A closer link
Supermassive black holes and the galaxies they inhabit appear to grow up together.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Big Bang Confirmed: Seeing twists and turns of primordial light
The latest observations of the cosmic microwave background reveal that photons from adjacent patches of the sky have slightly different polarizations.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Less Massive than Saturn?
Astronomers pass a milestone in the search for new worlds.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Found: Gamma-ray background information
Resolving a 30-year-old mystery, astronomers say they have identified the source of the faint, high-energy glow of radiation known as the gamma-ray background.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
X-ray telescope vanishes
Astro-E, a Japanese X-ray observatory, fell back to Earth and burned up just after launch on Feb. 9.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Craft spies new class of gamma-ray sources
Roughly half the 120 unidentified sources of high-energy gamma-ray emissions in the Milky Way—those at midgalactic latitudes—may comprise a new class of objects and originate from a belt of massive stars that lies only a few hundred light-years from the solar system.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Hole in the Middle: Are midsize black holes the missing link?
Two teams of astronomers reported that they had confirmed the existence of a new class of black hole.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Reflecting on the Kuiper belt
A new study suggests that at least some members of the Kuiper belt, the reservoir of comets and other frozen objects that lie beyond the orbit of Neptune, reflect more sunlight and are considerably smaller than previously calculated.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Magnetars: A missing link
A rare group of ultradense stars may be magnetars, objects with the strongest magnetic fields known in the universe.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Spacecraft sounds out the sun’s hidden half
By detecting sound waves that have traveled through the sun, two physicists have for the first time found a way to view disturbances on the sun's hidden half, providing a glimpse of stormy weather patterns a week to 10 days before they come into view.
By Ron Cowen