Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Planetary Science

    Enceladus: Small but feisty

    Close-up observations of Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus reveal that its south pole is hotter than its equator and that the icy satellite continues to undergo eruptions.

  2. Astronomy

    Big sky

    The biggest survey of the heavens just got bigger when the Sloan Digital Sky Survey received a 3-year extension.

  3. Astronomy

    Three’s Company: Asteroid 87 Sylvia and her two moons

    Astronomers have for the first time discovered an asteroid with two moons, an indication that the rock is highly porous.

  4. Astronomy

    Cosmic soot

    Astronomers have found a group of complex organic compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, from a time when the universe was less than one-third its current age.

  5. Astronomy

    Cosmic Computing

    The largest computer simulation of the universe ever compiled uses dark matter to shed light on the formation of galaxies and on the visible structure of the universe.

  6. Planetary Science

    Bigger than Pluto: Tenth planet or icy leftover?

    Astronomers have found a body larger and more distant than Pluto, the biggest object found in the solar system since Neptune and its moon Triton were discovered in 1846.

  7. Planetary Science

    Cassini eyes youthful-looking Saturnian moon

    On July 14, the Cassini spacecraft came within 175 kilometers of the south polar region of Saturn's bright, tiny moon Enceladus, revealing a tortured terrain of faults, folds, and ridges.

  8. Astronomy

    Planet potential

    Observations with the Submillimeter Array on Hawaii's Mauna Kea reveal that, despite their bombardment by a stellar bully, the disks in Orion have enough material to form planets.

  9. Astronomy

    A new X-ray eye on the cosmos

    To study some of the hottest regions in the universe, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has launched the coldest instrument ever flown.

  10. Astronomy

    Grand illusion

    Astronomers have detected the most distant cosmic mirage ever recorded.

  11. Astronomy

    Core mystery

    Despite new images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the brightest known supernova of the past 400 years remains a puzzle for astronomers.

  12. Astronomy

    Triple Play: A planet with three suns

    Three suns grace the skies above a newly found, Jupiterlike extrasolar planet, posing a puzzle for how massive planets form in a closely-knit, multiple-star system.