Astronomy

Astronomy

Making waves

Locked in a deadly embrace, two white dwarf stars may be the strongest source of gravitational waves now flooding our galaxy.

Astronomy

The supernova that wasn’t

A brilliant stellar outburst once thought to be a supernova explosion actually left the star intact.

Astronomy

Andromeda gets bigger

A new study reveals that the diameter of the Andromeda galaxy's disk spans some 220,000 light-years, three times as big as had been estimated.

Astronomy

Peering into a disrupted stellar nursery

A new infrared portrait of the Carina nebula star-forming region shows a clutch of baby stars tucked inside pillars of thick dust.

Astronomy

Spotty neutron stars

Astronomers have for the first time discerned hot spots on the surfaces of neutron stars.

Astronomy

Fleeting Flash: Pinpointing a short gamma-ray burst

An invisible, highly energetic flash detected by a spacecraft early this week may have given astronomers their first glimpse of two neutron stars colliding to forge a black hole.

Astronomy

Planetary Picture? Criteria for planethood cloud object’s identity

Astronomers are debating whether an image of a planetary-mass object orbiting a brown dwarf qualifies as the first image of an extrasolar planet.

Astronomy

Shell of a finding

A new X-ray portrait of a supernova remnant suggests that this shell of hot gas may be hard to discern if the interstellar medium around the exploded star has extremely low density.

Astronomy

Distant Dust: Asteroid belt or boiling comet?

A swarm of warm dust surrounding a star 41 light-years from Earth may be a sign of the closest extrasolar analog to the solar system's asteroid belt.

Astronomy

Dark Influence

A study of galaxy clusters tests whether dark matter particles can collide with each other, while other observations show that dark matter doesn't behave as expected near the centers of galaxies.

Astronomy

Cosmic Primitive: Old star sheds light on early stellar formation

Astronomers have found one of the most chemically primitive stars known, dating to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

Astronomy

Stellar Question: Extrasolar planet or failed star?

A tiny dot of light next to a young, sunlike star might be the long-sought image of an extrasolar planet.