Spacecraft Sneaks Up on a "Sweaty" Comet
Over the coming month the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission will fire its main engines no less than eight times to tweak its interplanetary intercept course with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko; eventually sidling up to the 4 kilometer wide cometary nucleus at about 7.9 meters per second in early August.
Dwarf Galaxies Really Cooking with Gas
The smallest galaxies in the universe gave rise to an unexpectedly large proportion of stars. Karen Hopkin reports
"Extremely Large Telescope" Breaks Ground
The European Southern Observatory broke ground June 19th to build the world's largest telescope atop the Cerro Armazones mountain in Chile. Clara Moskowitz reports
Gravitational-Wave Findings Could Amount to Dust
The astronomers who announced earlier this year evidence of a signal from the dawn of time now are taking a more cautious stance
Telescope Will Search for Spacecraft's Post-Pluto Target
The Hubble space telescope could increase the chances of success for the New Horizons mission, which is currently nine tenths of the way to Pluto
All Aboard the 100 Year Starship
In 2012, I asked LeVar Burton (who comandeered the Scientific American website as guest editor on Wednesday) if he would join me on a trip across time and space, to another star.
Is Seeing a Comet Like Halley’s a Once-in-a-Lifetime Event?
The Logic and Beauty of Cosmological Natural Selection
I have a prediction. There is a scientific hypothesis, formulated over 20 years ago, that we will one day look back on, when the evidence is in, and say “Of course that was right!
Time Travel: Installing an Atomic Clock at 15,000 Feet
A few months ago I went to Cambridge, Mass. to check in with the Event Horizon Telescope crew and found Shep Doeleman, the project leader, fresh off the completion of a major purchase.
Lunar Rock Chemistry Argued to Reveal How the Moon Formed
Small differences in oxygen-isotope ratios have been used to support the big-smash theory
Space: A New Hope or an Old Dream?
The release of a long-awaited National Academy of Sciences report on the state and future of the US space program has triggered wide-reaching commentary on what it means to be space-faring.
When Galaxy Clusters Crash, Light Warps and Particles Fly
New observations of a behemoth collision reveal extreme physical forces at work