Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Planetary Science

    When storms collide on Jupiter

    Astronomers have for the first time witnessed two giant storms merging on Jupiter.

  2. Planetary Science

    NASA postpones plans for Mars samples

    Still reeling from the failure of its two most recent missions to Mars, NASA announced late last month that it would delay by nearly a decade plans to bring back samples from the Red Planet.

  3. Humans

    Science gets a start on the space station

    Although the space station's main laboratories have yet to be launched, scientists are already using nooks and crannies in the existing structure to conduct experiments in biotechnology and physics.

  4. Astronomy

    Rendezvous gets more personal with Eros

    Venturing closer to a space rock than any satellite has ever gone before, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)-Shoemaker mission last week took the sharpest images ever recorded of an asteroid.

  5. Planetary Science

    Threat to Titan mission deepens

    If a communications problem between the Huygens probe and its mother craft is not corrected, as much as two-thirds of the data gathered by the probe during its 2004 descent through Titan's atmosphere could be lost.

  6. Planetary Science

    New moons for Saturn

    Astronomers reported the discovery of four new moons orbiting Saturn.

  7. Astronomy

    X-Ray Visionary

    Proposed observatory would image black holes and coronas of nearby stars.

  8. Astronomy

    Are most extrasolar planets hefty imposters?

    A new study makes the startling claim that nearly half the objects reported to be extrasolar planets are something much more massive and mundane—either lightweight stars or stellar wannabes known as brown dwarfs.

  9. Astronomy

    Invisible Universe

    X-ray astronomy opens a new window on the most energetic cosmic events.

  10. Planetary Science

    Radio link may hamper a Titan probe

    A recently discovered communications problem could prevent the Huygens probe from relaying all of its precious data when it parachutes through the cloud-bedecked atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in 2004.

  11. Astronomy

    Nudging asteroid fragments toward Earth

    New computer simulations detail how fragments of asteroids travel to Earth and rain down as meteorites.

  12. Astronomy

    Cosmic afterglow steals the limelight

    Thanks to a chance cosmic alignment, researchers appear to have resolved the detailed structure of the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst—even though the parent burst erupted halfway across the universe.