Astronomy
- Astronomy
Motion of two nearby galaxies clouds the picture
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way, but are relative newcomers passing by for the first time.
- Astronomy
Sunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet’s tail
Images from a spacecraft show a magnetic hurricane from the sun severing a comet's ion tail.
- Astronomy
Match Made in Heaven: Nearby galaxies resemble faraway type
Several nearby galaxies seem nearly identical to some of the remotest galaxies known, offering a glimpse of the era when galaxies first formed.
- Astronomy
Sputnik + 50
The launch of Sputnik 1, 50 years ago, ushered in a scientific and technological revolution, but dreams of the human conquest of space have faded.
- Astronomy
Out-of-focus find
Blurry images yield estimates of the true width of glowing meteor vapor trails in Earth's upper atmosphere.
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- Astronomy
Bloated planet
A newly discovered exoplanet is the largest and lowest-density such object yet found.
- Astronomy
Major merger
Four galaxies are ramming into each other in one of the biggest cosmic collisions ever recorded.
- Astronomy
Killer Collision: Dino demise traces to asteroid-family breakup
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was a wayward fragment from a violent collision in the asteroid belt.
- Astronomy
Dawn of a Disk: Water vapor pours down on embryonic star
Infrared observations show water vapor pouring down on a planet-forming disk around a young star.
- Astronomy
Separation Anxiety: Cosmic collision may shed light on dark matter
The debris from an ancient collision of galaxy clusters seems to show cosmic dark matter behaving in a puzzling way.
- Astronomy
Veiled black holes
Many X ray sources in the sky could be active galactic nuclei smothered by gas and dust that blocks their emission of visible and ultraviolet light.
