Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Astronomy

    The Milky Way’s Middle

    Sensitive X-ray, infrared, and radio telescopes are now providing an extraordinarily clear view of the dust-shrouded center of our galaxy.

  2. Astronomy

    X-Ray Universe: Quasar’s jet goes the distance

    Collisions with photons left over from the birth of the universe appear to have generated the longest X ray-emitting jet ever found in a distant galaxy.

  3. Astronomy

    UV telescopes: One dead, one revived

    One ultraviolet observatory burned up in Earth's atmosphere late last month while another has gotten a new lease on life.

  4. Planetary Science

    Extreme weather: Massive hurricanes meet on Jupiter

    Both professional and amateur sky watchers are pointing their telescopes at Jupiter as two titanic storms in the giant planet's upper atmosphere meet each other.

  5. Astronomy

    Supernova dealt deaths on Earth? Stellar blasts may have killed ancient marine life

    The explosion of nearby supernova may have caused the widespread extinction of marine life on Earth 2 million years ago.

  6. Astronomy

    Some new stars in the neighborhood

    As part of an ongoing survey of faint stars in the southern skies, astronomers have discovered 12 previously unknown stars that lie within a mere 33 light-years of Earth.

  7. Astronomy

    Seeing green: Color of the cosmos

    We live in a pale-green universe, according to astronomers who analyzed the colors of some 200,000 galaxies as part of the largest galaxy survey completed to date.

  8. Astronomy

    Are pictures of extrasolar planets in the offing?

    The first image of a planet orbiting a star other than the sun may be only a year away.

  9. Astronomy

    Some gamma-ray bursts may occur nearby

    A sizable minority of gamma-ray bursts may originate relatively nearby, in galaxies within 325 million light-years of our own.

  10. Planetary Science

    Exploring the Red Planet

    Searching for signs of subsurface water on the Red Planet and analyzing the elemental and mineral composition of surface rock, NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft begins its main mapping mission next month and may shed light on several enduring puzzles about the planet.

  11. Astronomy

    All Aglow in the Early Universe

    Was the infant cosmos a star-making machine?

  12. Astronomy

    Milky Way galaxy: Cloaked in a hot shroud?

    Spacecraft observations indicate that a vast, unseen halo of hot gas envelopes our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and could literally be brushing up against its nearest neighbors.