Read article 'WMAP’s cold spot shows giant void in space'
An enormous void, nearly a thousand million light-years across, seems to be at the origin of a cold spot that the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (WMAP) has found in the cosmic microwave backgrou...
Read article 'The LOFAR radio telescope detects its first pulsar'
Using its first station of distributed radio antennas, the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope has successfully detected the pulsar PSR B0329+54.
Read article 'Conceptions of Cosmos. From Myths to the Accelerating Universe: A History of Cosmology'
This is a historical account of how natural philosophers and scientists have endeavoured to understand the universe at large, first in a mythical and later in a scientific context.
Read article 'Black holes appear to play a role in the evolution of the universe'
Are black holes just a curiosity of nature or do they play a role in the formation and shaping of galaxies? The results of the most accomplished simulation to date show that the evolution of galaxies ...
Read article 'Europe’s astroparticle physicists publish roadmap to the stars'
The Astroparticle Physics European Coordination (ApPEC) consortium and the AStroParticle European Research Area (ASPERA) network have together published a roadmap giving an overview of the status and ...
Read article 'VERITAS telescopes celebrate first light'
David Hanna looks at the VHE gamma-ray telescope array in Arizona.
Read article 'Hubble detects ring of dark matter'
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed during a titanic collision between two massive galaxy clusters. Because ordinary matter in the cl...
Read article 'AGILE takes its place in orbit'
On 23 April, the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launched the Italian astronomical satellite, AGILE, into orbit from the Sriharikota base in Chennai-Madras.
Read article 'VIRGO opens up new astronomy'
On 18 May, the Virgo laser interferometer for the detection of gravitational waves started its first science run at the European Gravitational Observatory, Pisa, marking a step forward towards a new ...
Read article 'Astronomers discover Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone'
A rocky planet only five times the mass of the Earth was discovered around the nearby low-mass star Gliese 581. This is the most Earth-like planet known to date and furthermore its orbit is at th...
