Stories by Corey S. Powell

The Hunt Is On for Alpha Centauri’s Planets

Astronomers could soon learn whether or not the nearest neighboring star system harbors habitable worlds

Have We Mismeasured the Universe?

New studies of the oldest light and sound in the cosmos suggest novel physics—rather than systematic errors—could explain an unsolved scientific mystery

Pluto Probe Encounters a Pristine World in the Solar System’s Suburbs

Ultima Thule, the most-distant object ever visited by a spacecraft, is revealing our solar system’s deepest history—and, just maybe, revolutionizing planetary science

20 Years Later--a Q&A with the first Astronomer to Detect a Planet Orbiting Another Sun

Michel Mayor and grad student Didier Queloz were the first astronomers to identify an alien world as it circled a sunlike star

After Einstein, a New Generation Tries to Create a Theory of Everything

A new generation of physicists hope to succeed where Einstein failed

Science in Court

Reflections on science truth in an asbestos trial

Rivers of Fire

The SOHO spacecraft finds intricate plasma flows coursing through the sun

Crash and Burn

Radio eyes witness the mass births and deaths of stars

Life Goes for a Spin

A topsy-turvy earth may have triggered an evolutionary big bang

Return of the Space Snowballs

Did a blizzard of icy comets give the earth its oceans?

It's a Bird, It's a...Dinosaur?

Fossil finds heat up the debate over the origins of our feathered friends

Vanishing World

Could the first planet discovered around a sunlike star be a mirage?

The Greening Of Europa

Are the satellites of giant planets a place to look for life?

A MIRROR, CHEAPLY

Coof low-budget astronomymputer power opens a new era

By Jove!

All in the Timing

A quick-seeing satellite catches cosmic cannibals in the act

Rethinking the Speedy World

An international conference dares to ask, 'Is it time for the world to slow down?'

All in the Timing

A satellite observes the lightning-fast flickerings of cosmic objects

Science Goes to the Movies

An unusual concentration of science fact graces the silver screen

Bugs in the Data?

The controversy over Martian life is just beginning