Space

  1. Astronomy

    Triple Play: A planet with three suns

    Three suns grace the skies above a newly found, Jupiterlike extrasolar planet, posing a puzzle for how massive planets form in a closely-knit, multiple-star system.

    By Ron Cowen
  2. Astronomy

    Core Finding: Latest, oddest planet hints at how orbs form

    A newly discovered planet beyond the solar system has the most massive core of any planet known.

    By Ron Cowen
  3. Planetary Science

    A Grand Slam

    A 372-kilogram copper projectile released from NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft successfully slammed into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, producing some heavenly fireworks.

    By Ron Cowen
  4. Astronomy

    Rumblings from a dead star

    The burned-out cinder left behind when a massive Milky Way star exploded recently underwent its own outburst.

    By Ron Cowen
  5. Planetary Science

    Pebbles from Heaven: Tracking planets in the making

    Recording radio waves from the region around a young star, astronomers have for the first time documented the making pebbles, a key step in the rocky road to planethood.

    By Ron Cowen
  6. Planetary Science

    Flashy news from Mars

    A streak across the Martian sky observed by the rover Spirit was most likely a meteor associated with a comet called Wiseman-Skiff.

    By Ron Cowen
  7. Astronomy

    Panning Distant Dust

    Astronomers are using hundreds of newly detected debris disks found around a variety of nearby stars to hunt for planets and learn about the evolution of our solar system.

    By Ron Cowen
  8. Planetary Science

    Opportunity rolls out of Purgatory

    After being stuck for nearly 5 weeks, the Mars rover Opportunity has freed itself from a sand trap on the Red Planet.

    By Ron Cowen
  9. Planetary Science

    Planet Hunt Strikes Rock: Hot kin of Earth orbits nearby star

    Astronomers have found the closest known cousin to Earth, a solid world just 15 light-years beyond the solar system.

    By Ron Cowen
  10. Astronomy

    Making waves

    Locked in a deadly embrace, two white dwarf stars may be the strongest source of gravitational waves now flooding our galaxy.

    By Ron Cowen
  11. Astronomy

    The supernova that wasn’t

    A brilliant stellar outburst once thought to be a supernova explosion actually left the star intact.

    By Ron Cowen
  12. Astronomy

    Andromeda gets bigger

    A new study reveals that the diameter of the Andromeda galaxy's disk spans some 220,000 light-years, three times as big as had been estimated.

    By Ron Cowen