Astronomy

Astronomy

A bar of stars at the center of the Milky Way looks surprisingly young

The ages and locations of metal-rich stars in the galaxy suggest the Milky Way’s central bar finished forming just a few billion years ago.

Astronomy

How tiny red stars can test ideas about the origin of life

A survey of ultracool dwarf stars finds they don’t emit enough UV light to kick-start life, but they could reveal other ways for life to get going.

Astronomy

50 years ago, astronomers challenged claims that Barnard’s star has a planet

Astronomers have been searching for planets around the sun’s close neighbor for decades.

Astronomy

A rare, extremely energetic cosmic ray has mysterious origins

In 1991, physicists spotted a cosmic ray with so much energy it warranted an ‘OMG.’ Now that energetic particle has a new companion.

Astronomy

A rare glimpse at a relatively nearby supernova offers clues to how stars die

Thanks to its home in the Pinwheel galaxy, a favorite of amateur astronomers, researchers have monitored SN 2023ixf since shortly after it exploded.

Astronomy

The black hole–powered jet in galaxy M87 is making stars explode

Hubble Space Telescope data show a surprising number of nova blasts along the jet of high-speed gas coming from the galaxy M87.

Physics

Vela’s exploded star is the highest-energy pulsar ever seen

A spinning dead star about 1,000 light-years away, in the constellation Vela, raises questions about how pulsars can emit such extreme radiation.

Astronomy

This ‘polar ring’ galaxy looks like an eye. Others might be hiding in plain sight

New images of two galaxies reveal what look like rarely seen rings of hydrogen gas nearly perpendicular to the galaxies’ starry disks.

Astronomy

Astronomers call for renaming the Magellanic Clouds

Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is not a fitting namesake for the pair of satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, a group of scientists argues.

Astronomy

Active supermassive black holes may be rarer than previously thought

A dearth of rapidly growing black holes in new James Webb telescope data raises questions about how these behemoths grow and influence their galaxies.

Astronomy

This extreme star might have huge tidal waves

Gravitational forces between two orbiting stars might be creating huge waves of plasma on one of the stars that break and crash to the surface.

Astronomy

JWST’s hunt for distant galaxies keeps turning up surprises

In its first year, the James Webb Space Telescope has found many galaxies from the early universe that are bigger, brighter and more mature than expected.