Astronomy

Astronomy

Free-floaters: Images of planets?

Several recent studies have escalated the debate about what exactly constitutes a planet.

Astronomy

Astronomers get the spin on black holes

Recording the X-ray flashes emitted by matter as it plunges into one of these gravitational beasts, astronomers last week reported strong evidence that black holes spin like whirling dervishes, dragging space-time along with them.

Astronomy

Have scientists seen planets in the making?

Astronomers may finally have glimpsed a key step in the construction of a planet.

Astronomy

Solar cannibalism

Billion-ton clouds of charged gas hurled from the sun can overtake and eat their slower-moving gaseous brethren, complicating predictions of when and if one of these clouds might strike Earth.

Astronomy

Raging sun provides earthly light show

At the tumultous peak of its 11-year activity cycle, the sun is spitting out X-ray flares and belching giant clouds of high-energy particles at a furious rate.

Astronomy

Gamma-ray bursts reveal distant galaxies

A gamma-ray burst recorded Feb. 22, one of the brightest ever detected, is proving to be the strongest evidence so far that these cosmic flashbulbs originate in star-forming regions of distant galaxies and are generated by the explosive death of massive stars.

Astronomy

Eye on the Universe

For more than a decade, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with astonishing views of the universe. This week, the Exploratorium in San Francisco hosts a series of Webcasts from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore to present a behind-the-scenes peek at how the space telescope is managed. Also check out several collections […]

Astronomy

Searching for a lost craft

A recent Department of Defense analysis of images of the Red Planet may have located a lost spacecraft on Mars, but NASA says the images could just be electronic noise.

Astronomy

Probes find a new plume on Io

Two spacecraft jointly eyeing Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, have spotted a towering new plume.

Astronomy

A comet’s odd orbit hints at hidden planet

Far beyond the solar system's nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may once have been part of our planetary system, and it might still be there.

Astronomy

A Dark Force in the Universe

Cosmologists are thinking dark thoughts about what kind of mystery force may be contorting the cosmos, pushing galaxies apart at a faster and faster rate.

Astronomy

Starry Data Support Revved-Up Cosmos

Astronomers have confirmed one of the weirdest properties of the universe: Some mysterious force is pushing galaxies apart at a faster and faster rate.