Rearranging Stars to Communicate with Aliens
A proposal to create special constellations that nature would never produce 02.08.2008
The Developmentally Disabled Galaxy
A strange old galaxy churns out new stars like a young'un. 01.15.2008
98. Twin Probes Watch Sun’s Fury in 3-D
01.15.2008
60. Diamonds From Outer Space
01.09.2008
41. Black Hole Feasts At Milky Way’s Center
01.04.2008
27. Dying Star Leaves Trail Like a Comet
12.21.2007
The Man Who Imagined Wormholes and Schooled Hawking
Kip Thorne revolutionized physics, fixed up Contact, and straddled the Cold War divide. 11.09.2007
The Milky Way's Strange Galactic Neighbors
Fly-bys, hobbit galaxies, and an impending merger with Andromeda 09.18.2007
The Sun Flies Like a Bullet
The Milky Way's magnetic field constantly buffets our little star. 08.07.2007
Raw Data: Inside The Oldest Known Star
Astronomers find a star almost as old as the big bang. 07.30.2007
Map: Alien Weather Report
A planet with supersonic winds, where a day lasts a year 07.16.2007
Sun's Shifts May Cause Global Warming
Physicist says carbon dioxide's no big deal 06.25.2007
Perfect Symmetry in Space
Star "belches" are way prettier than they sound. 06.21.2007
One Spectacular Stellar Death
The biggest recent supernova revealed how stars live and die. 05.22.2007
Seeing Sun Storms in Stereo
Space weather is finally available in 3-D. 05.10.2007
Map: X-Ray Vision Shows How a Galaxy Cluster Grows
New X-ray data unveils the dynamics of galaxy cluster Abell 3266. 09.01.2006
Sky Lights: Remote-Control Astronomy
View the cosmos on your computer 05.29.2006
Hauntings of the First Stars
02.20.2006
Sky Lights
Nature's weirdest stars turn magnetism into radiation, unleashing as much energy in the blink of an eye as the sun does in 250,000 years 02.20.2006
The Year in Science: Astronomy
Planet Xena, cosmic evolution, gamma ray bursts, and more. 01.08.2006
X [marks the spot]
The First Star is Born 12.01.2005
Starry Galaxies Grow
Starry Galaxies Grow 11.22.2005
Planetary Peculiarities
05.01.2005
Galactic Nursery Found Close at Hand
03.31.2005
Sky Lights
In the heavens as on Earth, reliability is rare, precious, and well, unreliable 03.31.2005
Sky Lights
Just wait until you hear the weather report for the Boomerang nebula 02.06.2005
X-Ray Vision
A completely different view of ravenous black holes, exploding stars, colliding galaxies, and other wonders of the universe a human eye can't see 02.05.2005
26: Molecules of Life Brew Between Stars
01.02.2005
The Milky Way's Deadly Inner Zone
01.02.2005
Sky Lights
Outer space is not just out there—it is also on your windowsill and inside your body 11.25.2004
Sky Lights
Does the secret of extraterrestrial life lie deep within the stars and planets? 07.25.2004
The Puzzle of the Precocious Galaxies
05.29.2004
Ask Discover
04.21.2004
Pleiades Pileup
01.05.2004
Caught in the Act: Our Cannibal Galaxy
01.03.2004
Quadrillions and Quadrillions of Stars
12.03.2003
To Catch a Pulsar by the Tail
12.03.2003
Sky Lights
Five astronomy illusions to trick an unwary autumn sky observer 10.01.2003
On the Trail of Intergalactic Scat
08.01.2003
The Biggest Chill
05.01.2003
Sky Lights
Jupiter's bright light calls attention to an oft-overlooked stellar treasure 04.01.2003
In the Beginning, All Was—Black Holes?
04.01.2003
Astronomy
01.01.2003
Sky Lights
Look sharp—there's change afoot up above 11.01.2002
A Cosmic Whopper
11.01.2002
Black Holes Flip Out
11.01.2002
The Very Best Telescope
A powerful, new, and rather bizarre collection of six small telescopes atop Mount Wilson is about to change our view of the stars forever 10.01.2002
Sky Lights
The heavens seem peaceful—but there is danger in the darkness 10.01.2002
Sky Lights
Riding a horse that moves at 137 miles per second 09.01.2002
Works in Progress
Gamma-ray bursts illuminate the farthest reaches of space 08.01.2002
Black Holes Spin?
That's only one of several incredible new surprises about these whirlpools of darkness 07.01.2002
Black Beauty
05.01.2002
Let There Be Light
04.01.2002
Works in Progress
When it's a planet that's not a planet 01.01.2002
Twinkle, Twinkle Little What?
11.01.2001
Sky Lights
Nature's blackest creations slowly reveal their true identities 10.01.2001
Stardust
The Earth grows fatter every day, snowed under by a continuous microscopic flurry of space specks. Now scientists think space dust may hold the clues to which stars parented our solar system 09.01.2001
Planets in Peril
08.01.2001
Gold in Them Thar Stars
07.01.2001
Star in a Jar
Want to make a supernova? Astrophysicists are studying the heavens inside a lab 06.01.2001
Suck It In, Spit It Out
04.01.2001
Dream Weaver
01.01.2001
Sky Lights
Even in the firmament, the only thing constant is change 12.01.2000
Collision Course
11.01.2000
A Star Is Torn
A massive star may soon become a supernova. 09.01.1999
Baby Big Bangs
Massive supernovas called hypernovas could explain mysterious bursts of energy. 08.01.1999
Night Watchman
Snow and city lights can make February a sky watcher's washout. Not this year. 02.01.1999
Galactic Crime Scene
The Milky Way may be cannibalizing nearby galaxies. 12.01.1998
Sired by a Supernova
Cosmic rays born in the shock waves of explosive star death. 11.01.1998
Galaxies in Hiding
11.01.1998
The Mysterious Middle of the Milky Way
At the center of our galaxy is a storm of exploding stars circling a hungry black hole. 11.01.1998
Young Star
Hubble shows the violent birth of a massive star. 10.01.1998
The Archer
Gaze toward the Milky Way's core, around which we imperceptibly revolve 08.01.1998
Cosmic Kickball
What makes a pulsar spin? 08.01.1998
The Year in Science: Astronomy 1997
It turns out gama ray bursts are truly titanic. 01.01.1998
The Year in Science: Astronomy 1997
The Pistol Star makes our own sun lookd downright puny. 01.01.1998
Ramming Remnants
The debris from two supernovae collides. 10.01.1997
A Halo of Suns
Mysterious galactic halos may be made from ordinary stars. 09.01.1997
The Great Summer Triangle
Within the triangle, treasures await 09.01.1997
Watery Stellar Nurseries
Water may be the key ingredient for the successful birth of a star. 07.01.1997
Star Bright
Hubble catches sight of stars so dim it's like seeing the glow of a single cigarette on the moon. 06.01.1997
The Star Machine
When a team of astrophysicists wanted to simulate a moderate-size star cluster, they figured the world's fastest computer could help. And so it could, they learned, give 3,000 years for calculating. So these computer neophytes did the natural thing. They built an even faster computer. 06.01.1997
Water World
Beneath the six-mile-thick shell of ice that encases the moon Europa may lie a vast liquid ocean. And in its dark, alient depths, we may--if we look--find something swimming alive. 05.01.1997
See That Black Hole?
By swallowing huge amounts of energy, a black hole betrays it's whereabouts. 04.01.1997
The Lion in Spring
In April Leo leaps above the eastern horizon at nightfall. 04.01.1997
Your Stars in 1997
Comets, meteors, eclipses, conjunctions and planets will all show off this year. 01.01.1997
Mystery of the Missing Star
The spectacular supernova of 1987 left a hole astronomers have tried to plug for nine years. 12.01.1996
Just Gas, Part II
10.01.1996
Fright Night
10.01.1996
Ripples in the Crab Nebula
09.01.1996
Pancakes and Sausages
07.01.1996
A New Type of Star
A pulsar shoots out powerful bursts of x-rays. 07.01.1996
Scorpion Season
07.01.1996
Death of a Star
Big stars explode and little stars last forever, but medium stars like our sun just fade away ... or do they? 07.01.1996
Harassed Galaxies
06.01.1996
Summer Resolution
June offers celestial splendors that lie at the very edges of human vision. 06.01.1996
A Star That Went Too Close
A star ripped to shreds by a massive black hole may explain a strange feature near the center of our galaxy. 05.01.1996
The Face of Another Sun
04.01.1996
Whence the Rays? Thence the Rays
A source of mysterious cosmic rays is found at last. 03.01.1996
In the Nursery of the Stars
Infant stars kick, scream, and spew hot gas many light-years into space. 02.01.1996
The Quasars' New Clothes
The more we learn, the less we seem to know about quasars. 01.01.1996
Hi-ho, Hi-ho
Brown dwarfs are the missing link between normal stars and planets. 01.01.1996
Vanishing Stars
Some stars pulse like lighthouse beacons. 10.01.1995
Slipping Toward Vega
07.01.1995
Constant as the Northern Star
The pole star won't always point north. 05.01.1995
The Space Between the Stars
The emptiness is rich in both mystery and misconception. 12.01.1994
Black As Night
The coming of winter brings new constelations. 10.01.1994
September Slowdown
Constellations seem to move more slowly in the fall. 09.01.1994
Invisible Dynamos
Why do galaxies have magnetic fields? It may be because most of them harbor giant black holes at their centers. 07.01.1994
Winds of Change
In the mysterious, glowing clouds created by the collision of violently blowing gases, you can read the record of a star's dying days. 06.01.1994
Dim Lights Everywhere
The universe is turning out to be thronged with dim and ghostly young galaxies that had escaped the notice of astronomers. 05.01.1994
Little Bullies of the Sky
03.01.1994
Hunting Season
Orion is full of wonders. 02.01.1994
The Case of the Missing Neutron Stars
Why some stars can end their lives as both a supernova and a black hole. 12.01.1993
Bright Fires Around Us
Mysterious burst of gamma rays reach Earth almost every day—where do they come from? 08.01.1993
A Bubble Is Born
We live in a bubble. It’s about 600 light-years wide. And the exploding star that created it may have been as bright as the full moon. 06.01.1993
The Center Is Ancient
Most astronomers think the Milky Way’s suburbs are its oldest part—they may be wrong. 05.01.1993
Walking in From Arcturus
Arc to Arcturus 04.01.1993
The Ultimate Icebox
Stars come in a wide range of temperatures. 02.01.1993
Island of Stars
10.01.1992
Doubtful Elements
08.01.1992
The Center of the Galaxy
07.01.1992
Cosmic Cartographer
Bob Kirshner wants to give the map of the universe some scale. His yardstick: the bright beacon of a supernova. 07.01.1992
The Young and the Globular
06.01.1992
Season of the Dipper
04.01.1992