Chaos and Destruction: Dead Star’s Cannibalism of Its Planetary System Is Most Far-Reaching Ever Witnessed
White dwarf provides insight into the systemic chaos that occurs when a star dies. The violent death throes of a nearby star caused such a…
Astronomy
Watching the Violent Death of a Rare, Extreme Supergiant Star
By tracing molecular emissions in the outflows around the red hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris, astronomers have obtained the first detailed map of the star’s…
Galactic Belly Flop: Mysterious “Blue Blobs” Reveal a New Kind of Star System
The stellar structures are thought to be created when galaxies collide with hot gas in a process that could be likened to doing a belly…
Astronomers Discover Evidence for Most Powerful Pulsar in Distant Galaxy
Astronomers analyzing data from the VLA Sky Survey (VLASS) have discovered one of the youngest known neutron stars — the superdense remnant of a massive…
Hubble Captures Incredible Snapshot of a Massive Galaxy Cluster
The massive galaxy cluster Abell 1351 is captured in this image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for…
Listen to NASA’s Sonification of Majestic Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
The majestic spiral galaxy NGC 1300’s arms hold blue clusters of young stars, pink clouds of star formation, and dark lanes of dust. To represent…
Over a Million Miles per Hour: NASA’s Chandra Catches Pulsar in X-Ray Speed Trap
A pulsar is racing through the debris of an exploded star at a speed of over a million miles per hour. To measure this, researchers…
Infographic: Anatomy of a Comet
Comets are cosmic snowballs, the frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system composed of frozen gases, dust, and rock. They range in size…
The James Webb Space Telescope: Prepare for a New Way To See the Universe
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready to do science – and it’s seeing the universe more clearly than even its own engineers hoped…
New Type Neutron Star Discovered in Unusual Galactic Graveyard
Beginning of a new class of neutron star. A new kind of neutron star has been discovered by a University of Sydney astronomer and her…
Astronomers Discover a Nearby Multiplanet System With Two Earth-Sized Planets
Located just 33 light years from Earth, the system appears to host two rocky, Earth-sized planets. A new multiplanet system within our galactic neighborhood has…
Cosmic Cannibalism: Dead Star Caught Violently Tearing Up Planetary System
Both Rocky and Icy Bodies Were Identified Among the Debris on the Surface of a White Dwarf Star “Bring out your dead!” rings in the…
ESA’s Comet Interceptor Approved for Construction
In 2019, the European Space Agency (ESA) selected Comet Interceptor as a new fast-class (F-class) mission. These missions, where “fast” refers to development speed, are…
In a Flash: Weird Star Produces the Fastest Nova on Record
Most people are familiar with supernovas, the spectacular stellar explosions that occur at the end of a massive star’s life and often result in a…
New Clues to Mysterious Formation of Hot Jupiter Exoplanets
Astronomers discover a new way of determining the relative age of exoplanets and prove there are multiple ways these planets form. In our solar system,…
Hubble Finds Phantom Imprint in Space Revealing Black Hole Roaming Our Milky Way Galaxy
Hubble Determines Mass of Black Hole Isolated Black Hole Supermassive black holes, such as Sagittarius A* — the black hole at the center of the…
Starquakes! Gaia Spacecraft Sees Strange Stars in Most Detailed Milky Way Survey to Date
Gaia is a mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) to create an precise three-dimensional map of more than a billion stars throughout our Milky…
Hubble Space Telescope Captures a Stunning Cosmic Treasure Chest
On a regular basis, the Hubble Space Telescope releases spectacular images, from incredible spiral galaxies and galactic oddballs to gorgeous pictures of the planets in…
