Space
- Space
A little bit of gamma-ray music
BLOG: Art and science meld during a musical performance for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
By Ron Cowen - Space
Gamma-ray sources guide astronomers to pulsars
Gamma-ray emissions are providing a guide to finding the compact, rapidly rotating remnants of massive stars known as pulsars.
By Ron Cowen - Space
Giant galaxy graveyard grows
The largest known galactic congregation is bigger than astronomers thought—and its inhabitants are all dead or dying.
- Space
Volcanic and ferric surprises on Mercury
Volcanic activity is more recent than expected, MESSENGER shows on its third flyby of the planet. Also, surface iron occurs as oxides.
- Space
New way to help avoid a space shuttle disaster
A new technique to make shuttle launches safer combines tricks from particle colliders, moon landings and vulture tracking.
- Space
Cosmic rays traced to centers of star birth
By detecting gamma rays, a new generation of telescopes bolsters theory that supernovas are origin of some cosmic rays
By Ron Cowen - Space
The Drake Equation Turns 50: An interview with Frank Drake
The astronomer shares his name with the equation that quantifies the number of detectable civilizations in the Milky Way.
By Nadia Drake - Space
Gamma-ray observations shrink known grain size of spacetime
A new study eliminates some theories of quantum gravity by finding that spacetime isn’t as lumpy as some models had proposed.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Mercury, As Never Seen Before: MESSENGER visits innermost planet
The first spacecraft to visit Mercury in 33 years imaged 25 percent of the crater-pocked surface that had never before been seen close-up.
By Ron Cowen - Space
Panel says planned NASA rocket won’t do the job
The Ares 1 set to replace the space shuttle is too expensive and won’t be ready soon enough, the Augustine Committee concludes.
By Ron Cowen - Space
SuperEarths common for other stars
A mother lode of 32 newly discovered planets brings the number of known extrasolar planets to more than 400 and suggests that lightweight planets are common around sunlike stars.
By Ron Cowen - Space
Images show puny plume from moon crash
Data from another craft suggest iron and mercury, not frozen water, were kicked up when a spent rocket plunged into a lunar crater
By Ron Cowen