Latest articles by Keith Cooper
A tiny Apollo 17 moon rock is unlocking a secret lunar history
The small chunk of rock could be telling us that many of the moon’s largest impacts happened over 4.25 billion years ago.
James Webb Space Telescope peers deep into the heart of star formation in our Milky Way galaxy
The star-forming region called Sagittarius B2 contains half of the galactic center's stars, yet only 10% of the gas.
These 2 galaxies are falling into the Virgo Cluster at a staggering rate of 547 miles per second
Two galaxies connected by a bridge of hydrogen gas are falling into the Virgo Cluster.
Could astronauts travel to Mars on nuclear-powered rockets? These scientists want to make it happen
The team's design uses fission reactions involving uranium to heat propellant.
Can a spacecraft land on a teeny tiny asteroid? Japan's Hayabusa2 will certainly try
Hayabusa2's new target, asteroid 1998 KY26, is just 36 feet (11 meters) across, which will make landing on it challenging.
'The sun is slowly waking up': Scientists say a rise in solar storms awaits us
The turning point seems to have been after 2008, which had the lowest amount of solar activity on record.
New space junk removal idea: Using ion engine exhaust to knock debris out of the sky
With a modest amount of thrust and power, a new ion engine system could get rid of 1-ton pieces of space junk in less than 100 days. Here's how it works.
These 2 European telescopes use lasers to track potentially dangerous space junk (video)
The laser system provides real-time positional data on the huge cloud of space debris above our heads in low Earth orbit.
James Webb Space Telescope images enormous star shooting out twin jets 8 light-years long
The James Webb Space Telescope caught the birth of an enormous star with particle beams cutting across a stretch of interstellar space.
Spacecraft launcher named for robot in 'Interstellar' could help us reach another star system. Here's how
A new low-cost concept for interstellar travel combines solar power with a slingshot, but it would take a long time to reach the stars.
Triple star system burns bright in new image from the James Webb Space Telescope
One member of the cluster was previously believed to be the most massive star known, but is actually a triple star system of huge stars, all of which will go supernova.
Could a unique rectangular telescope be the key to finding Earth 2.0?
A new concept for a next generation space telescope could provide an affordable breakthrough in the hunt for Earth's twin.
A dead 'sun' forms building blocks of exoplanets in new JWST Butterfly Nebula image
The Butterfly Nebula, which is a planetary nebula resulting from the death of a sun-like star, has been caught creating large dust grains that could form planets.
Why are our solar system planets tilted? These warped exoplanet-forming disks may offer clues
Although the existence of the warps is widespread, their origin is still a mystery.
World's most powerful solar telescope sees incredible coronal loops on the sun (image)
The narrowest magnetic loops ever seen in the sun's corona have been imaged by the most powerful solar telescope on Earth.
What caused the only known lunar landslide? Newly opened Apollo 17 moon samples may hold the answer
A mysterious lunar landslide might have been caused by debris from a faraway crater-forming impact, new analyses of Apollo 17 moon samples suggest.
Pair of colliding galaxies may hint at the fate of the Milky Way and its closest galactic neighbor
The impending merger of the two galaxies hints at what might be in store for the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy if and when they collide.
Supernovas are hard to detect. Scientists just found a way to spot them hours after they explode
Astronomers have learned how to find supernova explosions in their earliest stages, giving us an unprecedented look at how these stars blow up.
What if we've been thinking about dark matter all wrong, scientist wonders
Two exotic new theories suggest dark matter could be either made from tiny black holes or formed by Hawking radiation at the cosmic horizon.
TRAPPIST-1d isn't the Earth-like planet scientists had hoped it to be, according to JWST data
As another world around TRAPPIST-1 shows no signs of an atmosphere, astronomers urge us not to give up hope for an Earth-like atmosphere on one of the other worlds in the system.
Red supergiant star expels mysteriously large cloud of gas
The star, called DFK 52, is a member of a cluster of similar red supergiants, but it's losing mass at an extreme rate never seen before.
Scientists may have found a powerful new space object: 'It doesn't fit comfortably into any known category'
Nicknamed 'Punctum,' this puzzling phenomenon is highly energetic, but is only seen in millimeter-wavelength light and cannot be explained by any known object.
Is astronomy safe from organized scientific fraud?
As space becomes more important to the economy of nations around the world, the risk of paper mills flooding the literature with fraudulent results is increasing.
