Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Astronomy

    News of the Early Universe: Findings from the cosmic microwave background

    The most detailed snapshots so far of the infant universe confirm that the cosmos consists mostly of mystery material, called dark energy, that accelerates the universe's expansion.

  2. Planetary Science

    Martian History: Weathering a new notion

    Researchers suggest that intermittent impacts by huge asteroids and comets some 3.5 billion years ago profoundly influenced the landscape of Mars.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

  9. Planetary Science

    Leapin’ Lava! Volcanic eruption on Io breaks the record

    Pointing a ground-based telescope at Jupiter's moon Io, astronomers have recorded the most powerful volcano ever observed in the solar system.

  10. Astronomy

    Something New on the Sun

    The sharpest visible-light images of the sun ever recorded are revealing puzzling, new features of sunspots, the dark regions where the sun's powerful magnetic field is concentrated.

  11. Planetary Science

    Europa’s freckles

    Reddish spots and shallow pits that pepper the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa may mark regions where warmer and less dense ice percolates to the surface.

  12. Planetary Science

    Another moon for Uranus

    Astronomers have confirmed the existence of the 21st moon known to be orbiting Uranus.