Astronomy
- Astronomy
Galaxies shine light on dark matter
Using a cosmic mirage known as gravitational lensing, astronomers have developed detailed maps of the distribution of dark matter, the invisible material believed to make up 90 percent of the mass of the universe.
- Astronomy
Astronomers rediscover long-lost asteroid
After 89 years of playing a cosmic version of Where's Waldo?, astronomers have located a long-lost asteroid named Albert.
- Astronomy
Enlarging a Mars photo album
A new set of more than 18,000 images of Mars, posted online in early October, features the sharpest picture of the Red Planet ever taken by an orbiting spacecraft.
- Astronomy
Iron-Poor Star: Closing in on the birth of the first stars
Astronomers have found a star so old and metal poor that its chemical composition carries vestiges of the origin of our galaxy.
- Astronomy
Astronomers find evidence of missing matter
Astronomers say they've likely confirmed that half of the hydrogen gas in the universe, which had not been accounted for, resides in relatively nearby reaches of intergalactic space.
- Astronomy
Cloudy Findings: A new population shows up in the Milky Way
A radio telescope has detected a previously unknown population of hundreds of hydrogen clouds in the gaseous halo that surrounds the disk of our galaxy.
- Astronomy
News flash: Earth still has only one moon
An object discovered orbiting Earth in early September isn't a moon but something much more mundane—an upper stage of a rocket that was used in the Apollo 12 mission to the moon.
- Astronomy
X-ray satellite goes the distance
Using the sharp X-ray eye of an orbiting observatory, astronomers have employed a novel method to measure distance within the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
A Hubble Decade
To celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope’s 10th anniversary, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., has created a new Web site devoted to the Earth-orbiting telescope and its spectacular images. Offering much more than pretty pictures, the site recounts Hubble’s discoveries, illustrates how the telescope works, and suggests various educational activities and games. Until […]
- Astronomy
Celestial Divide: Finding two families of galaxies
By analyzing data from a mammoth sky survey, astromoners have found that galaxies divide into two distinct families, depending on their stellar mass.
- Astronomy
Hefty Discovery: Finding a Kuiper belt king
A newly discovered celestial body appears to be the largest object that scientists have found in the solar system since their detection of Pluto in 1930.
- Astronomy
Balloon Sounds Out the Early Universe
A balloon-borne experiment circling Antarctica has measured the curvature of the universe and revealed that it's perfectly flat.
