Messy Cleanup Awaits Subaru Telescope
It's always bad news when your coolant line ruptures and spews antifreeze everywhere. It's really bad news when the stuff leaks all over one of the world's largest telescopes.
The Star That Changed Our Universe
Modern observers have revisited a dim variable star in the Andromeda Galaxy whose discovery in 1923 rocked the astronomical world.
Closeup of a Black-Hole Powerhouse
Come along with radio astronomers as they zoom in on the powerful, high-energy jets of Centaurus A and the supermassive black hole at its heart.
Praising Arizona — II
S&T contributing editor Govert Schilling visits observatories in southern Arizona.
Praising Arizona — I
S&T contributing editor Govert Schilling visits observatories in southern Arizona
Forced "Hibernation" for SETI Telescope
Astronomers have shut down the innovative Allen Telescope Array in northern California — a huge blow to the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
McDonald Observatory Dodges Wildfire
The Rock House Fire has consumed more than 300 square miles in West Texas and came within about a mile of the telescopes atop Mount Locke before abating. But the nearby town of Fort Davis wasn't so fortunate.
Gemini Telescope's "Bad-Seeing Blaster"
Ten years in development, a new system now being tested in Chile uses a 50-watt laser to create a constellation of five artificial stars high in the atmosphere. The goal? Soon it will allow the giant Gemini Telescope to record ultrasharp views never before possible.
"Hidden Treasures" Winners Announced
It was challenging to pick the best of the best from among nearly 100 entries. But there's no argument that the melding of raw European Southern Observatory images with amateur astrophotographers' creativity has produced stunning results.
Create Great Images, Win Cool Stuff!
Are you up for a challenge? Work some computer magic on images obtained with the ESO telescopes, and you might win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
Kicking SOFIA's Tires
Take a peek inside an amazing "flying telescope" now being readied for routine observing runs in the stratosphere.
My "Backyard" Radio Observatory
Nestled in the woods of suburban Boston is a 1,300-acre complex of radio telescopes that have served civilian astronomers — and super-secret defense projects — for nearly 50 years.
Darkness Still Reigns Over Kitt Peak
Since astronomers started calling Tucson home in 1958, the city's population has quadrupled to more than 500,000. Yet the night sky above the observatories on nearby Kitt Peak is as dark now as it was 20 years ago.
Big Bear's Big New Eye
The "first-light" image from the world's largest solar telescope reveals details in an Earth-size sunspot only 50 miles across.
One Star, Seven Planets
European astronomers had found a bustling solar system in the southern constellation Hydrus: a Sunlike star with at least five and probably seven worlds swarming around it.
Astro2010: U.S. Astronomy's Crystal Ball
If you had $12 billion to spend on ground- and space-based observatories over the next 10 years, how would decide what to build? A 255-page National Research Council study, just released, provides some answers.
Two Wide Eyes on the Sky
Astronomers are starting to make observations with the first Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii (seen here) and the LOFAR radio interferometer in the Netherlands.
A Cauldron of Newborn Stars
The Hubble Space Telescope has returned its high-definition gaze to a spectacular bubble of glowing hydrogen known as N 11 in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
"First Light" for a Flying Telescope
SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, has finally feasted on starlight after a tortuous 14-year development.
The Hidden Face of M83
The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy is already famous as a gorgeous deep-sky showpiece. Now astronomers have probed its structure with a high-resolution infrared view.