Astronomy

Astronomy

Probe’s comet encounter yields close-ups

A crippled NASA probe successfully navigated close enough to Comet Borrelly to capture and beam home black-and-white and infared images of its nucleus and new data about ions and other particles that radiate from it.

Astronomy

After a failure, a new craft to sail

Despite the July 20 failure of its mission to test the unfurling of a solar sail in a suborbital trajectory, the Planetary Society announced plans in late August to conduct a second test of a sail-propelled craft.

Astronomy

A meteorite’s pristine origins

A rare, carbon-rich meteorite that fell into a frozen Canadian lake last year ranks as the most pristine of such specimens ever found.

Astronomy

Gravity’s lens: Finding a sextet of images

Astronomers have for the first time found a gravitational lens in which the image of a distant galaxy has been split into six distinct images.

Astronomy

Gravity’s lens: Finding a dim cluster

Relying solely on a gravitational mirage rather than visible images, astronomers have discovered a previously unknown cluster of galaxies and measured its distance from Earth.

Astronomy

When Branes Collide

A controversial new theory proposes that our universe existed as a cold, featureless void for eons, until a parallel universe floating through a hidden fifth dimension crashed into it, igniting the Big Bang.

Astronomy

X rays trace fierce stellar winds

A high-resolution X-ray view of the Rosette nebula, a nearby star-forming region, has revealed for the first time that the stellar winds from massive stars heat surrounding gas to a scorching 6 million kelvins.

Astronomy

Galaxy’s Black Hole: X Rays Mark Spot

An X-ray outburst from the center of our galaxy is providing compelling new evidence that a monster black hole lurks at the Milky Way's core.

Astronomy

Shocks jolt jet set galaxy, X rays reveal

A new image of the nearby galaxy Centaurus A reveals the first details of a phenomenon associated with the core of many galaxies: a huge jet of high-energy particles shooting out from a supermassive black hole.

Astronomy

Astronomers spy familiar planetary system

Studying a star in the Big Dipper, astronomers have for the first time found a planetary system that reminds them of home.

Astronomy

Eros: The movie

Close-up views of the asteroid 433 Eros, showing jagged rocks, fields of boulders, and debris-filled craters, are featured in a minute-long movie.

Astronomy

Senior star may have comets

Astronomers have found what could be the first evidence of water-bearing objects that orbit a star other than the sun.