Latest articles by Ker Than
The two motley parts of a near-Earth asteroid dance around each other like a miniature Earth and Moon, a new study finds.
The poet Robert Frost wondered if Earth would wind up a world of fire or ice; astronomers have discovered that a distant planet is both.
The closest planet outside our solar system orbits a young Sun-like star only 10.5 light years away—so close that telescopes might soon be able to snap pictures of it, new observations confirm.
Satellite observations have confirmed how a certain type of star explosion occurs and revealed a previously unknown stage of radiation release during the stellar burst.
A new census compiled by astronomers contains the location of every nearby galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center.
A recently spied planet orbits so close to its star that a new year comes every 10 hours.
A Russian rocket launched the world's fourth space tourist and two astronauts into orbit early Monday morning on a two-day trip bound for the International Space Station (ISS).
A newly discovered planet has one quarter the density of water and would float if placed in a bathtub large enough to hold it.
A planet slightly larger than Jupiter was recently spotted as it passed in front of a Sun-like star located 500-light-years away.
Pluto has been given a new name that reflects its new status as a dwarf planet.
A study of nearby galaxy clusters has failed to detect distortions in ancient microwave radiation that many scientists have linked to the creation of our universe.
The shadow cast by a moon as it floated through space above the blue-green cloud tops of Uranus was recently captured for the first time by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronomers have detected a GRB-supernova hybrid that could shed light on the mechanism behind both.
Automated telescopes and a new high speed wireless network are helping astronomers study the cosmos without having to chain themselves to observatory telescopes all night.
A conveyor-belt like process transports heavy elements from the surface of stars into their interiors where they are destroyed, new observations suggest.
The parent star of a distant planet discovered through gravitational microlensing has been identified for the first time.
