Keith Cooper – Astronomy Now

‘Half-Goldilocks’ world found going in and out of its habitable zone

11 February 2025 Keith Cooper

A bizarre exoplanet whose orbit takes it from the frozen wastelands of its planetary system to the inner edge of its habitable zone is challenging astronomers’ concepts of what kinds of planets can potentially support life.

Hubble traces hidden history of Andromeda Galaxy

24 January 2025 Keith Cooper

Though the Milky Way and Andromeda formed billions of years ago, evidence shows they have very different evolutionary histories despite sharing the same cosmological neighbourhood.

Euclid prepares to blast off on a mission to discover the fate of the Universe

30 June 2023 Keith Cooper

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope will blast off from Cape Canaveral on 1 July on a mission to shed light on the ‘dark universe’ dominated by dark matter and dark energy.

Frank Drake, SETI pioneer, 1930–2022

3 September 2022 Keith Cooper

Frank Drake, the radio astronomer who pioneered the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), died yesterday (2 September) at the age of 92.

Spritely behaviour

4 August 2022 Keith Cooper

Two rare phenomena associated with thunderstorms are captured in this expansive vista seen from 4,200 metres above sea level at the Gemini North telescope, overlooking the other observatories atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Dive into the dramatic octopus gallery

27 July 2022 Keith Cooper

Among the many things that make NGC 2336 an astonishing galaxy are its eight sprawling spiral arms

The layered hills of Mars’ Arabia Terra

8 July 2022 Keith Cooper

These layered hills, seen in this false-colour image of a portion of Arabia Terra on Mars, may possibly have a watery origin.

A fourth-century supernova

6 July 2022 Keith Cooper

These delicate yet fast-moving filaments of gas belong to a supernova remnant designated as 1E 0102.2-7219, which resulted from the destruction of a massive star long ago in the Small Magellanic Cloud, 200,000 light years away.

Cosmic Crash

5 July 2022 Keith Cooper

The galaxy NGC 3256 is seen here in the aftermath of a major galaxy merger.

The long view across Gale crater to the slopes of Mount Sharp

30 June 2022 Keith Cooper

This panorama was taken by the rover’s MastCam – from a ‘clay-bearing unit’ on the flank of Mount Sharp.