Astronomy

Astronomy

A dwarf with a disk

The Hubble Space Telescope has examined in unprecedented detail a ring of debris around a star that could be the nearest and youngest known home for planets outside the solar system.

Astronomy

Young and Near: Baby galaxies roam our backyard

An ultraviolet-detecting satellite has found that youthful versions of massive galaxies like the Milky Way may be only a cosmic stone's throw away.

Astronomy

People, Not Robots: Panel favors shuttle mission to Hubble

Sharply challenging NASA on the issue of safety in space, a National Academy of Sciences panel has recommended that the agency send astronauts to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope rather than send a robotic device.

Astronomy

Disks of Dust: Planet-stuff surrounds other sunlike stars

Two orbiting observatories for the first time are homing in on planetary debris circling sunlike stars.

Astronomy

Gamma view of a big blast

Astronomers have for the first time used extremely high-energy gamma rays to image a celestial body.

Astronomy

Explosive Tales

Four hundred years after the explosion of the Kepler supernova, the last such stellar eruption in our galaxy, astronomers have examined the supernova's remnant with state-of-the-art telescopes that view it in infrared, optical, and X-ray light.

Astronomy

Extrasolar Planet News: Superplanet or brown dwarf?

New observations of an oddball planetary system 150 light-years from Earth suggest that some planets either are superheavy, more than 17 times as massive as Jupiter, or that they form from disks of gas and dust that encircle not just a single star, but two starlike objects.

Astronomy

Belt Tightening: Icy orbs are surprisingly small

Objects in the distant reservoir of comets known as the Kuiper belt are intrinsically much brighter, and therefore smaller, than previously thought.

Astronomy

First Light: Faint object may be youngest star detected

Peeking into the dusty core of a dark cloud seemingly devoid of stars, astronomers have found a faintly glowing body that could be the earliest glimmerings ever recorded from a newborn star.

Astronomy

More moons for Saturn

With the discovery of two additional moons, the ringed planet now has a retinue of 24 known satellites orbiting it.

Astronomy

What a blast!

Astronomers have glimpsed a rare, long-lived neutron-star explosion that may represent the burning of carbon just beneath the surface of this superdense star.

Astronomy

Renegade stars in sun’s neighborhood

Some stars in the neighborhood of the sun may be renegades from the center of our galaxy.