Space

  1. Astronomy

    Sizing up small stars

    Astronomers have for the first time measured with high precision the size of a small star, Proxima Centauri, the known star nearest to the solar system.

    By Ron Cowen
  2. Astronomy

    Milky Way’s Last Major Merger

    Astronomers have found new evidence supporting the view that the Milky Way and many other spiral galaxies suffered their last major collision billions of years ago.

    By Ron Cowen
  3. Planetary Science

    X rays reveal Eros’ primitive nature

    Aided by a blast of X rays from the sun, a spacecraft orbiting the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros has gathered preliminary evidence that the rock is a primitive relic, apparently unchanged since the birth of the solar system.

    By Ron Cowen
  4. Astronomy

    Survey confirms composition of the cosmos

    A team of astronomers announced this week that after measuring the redshifts of 100,000 galaxies, they have new evidence for what makes up most of the mass of the universe.

    By Ruth Bennett
  5. Astronomy

    Hubble Weighs In: Pinning down an extrasolar planet’s mass

    Using a decades-old technique, astronomers have precisely measured the mass of a planet outside our solar system.

    By Ron Cowen
  6. Planetary Science

    Seeing Saturn

    After 5 years of interplanetary travel, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft has taken its first picture of the ringed planet.

    By Ron Cowen
  7. Astronomy

    Galactic cannibalism strikes again

    Astronomers have discovered the remains of a tiny galaxy that was swallowed by the galaxy Centaurus A only a few hundred million years ago.

    By Ron Cowen
  8. Planetary Science

    Martian Radiation: Giving off a faint X-ray glow

    Astronomers have for the first time taken an X-ray image of the Red Planet.

    By Ron Cowen
  9. Astronomy

    Cosmic Couple: One galaxy, two gravitational beasts

    Astronomers welcomed the discovery of two black holes in one galaxy, which confirms some ideas about how galaxies and black holes merge and evolve.

    By Carol Marzuola
  10. Astronomy

    More evidence of a flat universe

    Another balloon-borne experiment recording relic radiation from the Big Bang has found evidence that the universe is flat.

    By Ron Cowen
  11. Astronomy

    A supernova’s shocking development

    Astronomers have for the first time recorded the full force of the shock wave hurled from supernova 1987A, the brightest stellar explosion witnessed from Earth since the invention of the modern telescope.

    By Ron Cowen
  12. Astronomy

    New sky map: Look, Ma, no Milky Way!

    Using a radio telescope to record emissions from hydrogen gas, astronomers have penetrated the murk of the Milky Way to map the entire southern sky.

    By Ron Cowen