Ron Cowen

All Stories by Ron Cowen

  1. Particle Physics

    Reactor data hint at existence of fourth neutrino

    A nuclear reactor experiment in China is providing new hints that a fourth type of neutrino, one more than the standard model of physics allows, may exist.

  2. BOOK REVIEW: The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World by Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack

    Review by Ron Cowen.

  3. Space

    Lighting the universe

    Scientists rethink what the first stars were like and how they formed.

  4. Planetary Science

    Messages from Mercury

    The latest data from a NASA spacecraft give compositional clues and reveal craters that could hold frozen water

  5. Space

    Next solar cycle could be a no-show

    Three lines of evidence suggest that the sun’s next activity cycle will be delayed for years and may not happen at all, an outcome that could have major implications for Earth’s climate.

  6. Space

    No new particle from second detector

    The chances that the Tevatron is producing a previously unknown particle drop substantially after the collider's DZERO experiment finds nothing extraordinary.

  7. Space

    Superdupernovas

    A new class of stellar explosion is very bright — and somewhat hard to explain.

  8. Space

    Black hole jets in HD

    Images of unprecedented resolution offer insight into how black holes swallow up matter.

  9. Space

    Survey captures local universe in 3-D

    The most complete view to date of the nearby cosmos takes in 45,000 galaxies.

  10. Space

    Milky Way may get an extension

    A newly discovered feature at its fringes suggests the galaxy is an uncommon beauty: One half appears to be nearly a mirror image of the other.

  11. Space

    Crab Nebula activity keeps confounding

    Unusually rapid fluctuations in the output of a supernova remnant send theorists scuttling for a reasonable explanation.

  12. Into orbit

    MESSENGER pays a yearlong visit to Mercury.