Ken Croswell

Ken Croswell has a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University and is the author of eight books, including The Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way and The Lives of Stars.

All Stories by Ken Croswell

  1. Astronomy

    The North Star is much heavier than previously thought

    Polaris is about five times as massive as the sun, new observations reveal. That’s around 50 percent heavier than what an earlier study found.

  2. Planetary Science

    Sulfur was key to the first water on Earth

    Hydrogen bonded with sulfur may have given our world its first water after the hydrogen broke away and joined with oxygen in the planet’s crust.

  3. Astronomy

    The black hole–powered jet in galaxy M87 is making stars explode

    Hubble Space Telescope data show a surprising number of nova blasts along the jet of high-speed gas coming from the galaxy M87.

  4. Astronomy

    Jupiter-sized planets are very rare around the least massive stars

    A six-year search of 200 nearby low-mass red dwarf stars found no Jupiter-like planets, boosting the standard theory for how such planets form.

  5. Planetary Science

    Saturn’s icy rings are probably heating its atmosphere, giving it an ultraviolet glow

    Detecting similar emission from a distant world could help astronomers find other planets that boast bright and beautiful rings.

  6. Astronomy

    The Milky Way may be spawning many more stars than astronomers had thought

    Glowing radioactive debris from massive stars indicates our galaxy mints 10 to 20 new stars a year — double to quadruple the standard number.

  7. Astronomy

    Most stars may have much more time to form planets than previously thought

    Planet-making disks may survive around most young stars for 5 million to 10 million years — more than double a previous estimate.

  8. Astronomy

    A protogalaxy in the Milky Way may be our galaxy’s original nucleus

    Millions of ancient stars spanning about 18,000 light-years at the Milky Way’s heart are the kernel around which the galaxy grew, researchers say.

  9. Astronomy

    The heaviest neutron star on record is 2.35 times the mass of the sun

    The measurement helps refine the dividing line between neutron stars and black holes.

  10. Astronomy

    Neutrinos hint the sun has more carbon and nitrogen than previously thought

    Scientists still don’t know the sun’s exact chemical composition, which is crucial for understanding the entire universe. Neutrinos will help.

  11. Astronomy

    ‘Goldilocks’ stars may pose challenges for any nearby habitable planets

    Orange dwarfs emit far-ultraviolet light long after birth, stressing the atmospheres of potentially life-bearing worlds.

  12. Astronomy

    When the Magellanic Clouds cozy up to each other, stars are born

    The Magellanic Clouds, the two closest star-making galaxies to the Milky Way, owe much of their stellar creativity to each other.