Stars need a partner to spin Universe’s brightest explosions
When it comes to the biggest and brightest explosions seen in the Universe, University of Warwick astronomers have found that it takes two stars...
How NASA’s Webb telescope will continue Spitzer’s legacy
As one window to the universe closes, another will open with an even better view.
Some of the same planets, stars and galaxies we first...
Astronomers detect large amounts of oxygen in ancient star’s atmosphere
Astronomers from the University of California San Diego, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and the University of Cambridge have detected large amounts...
Scientists find new elements, hotter temperatures in the Milky Way
The halo that surrounds our Milky Way galaxy is hotter and made up of different proportions of elements than scientists previously thought, new research...
The mineral-rich water on early Mars could have been habitable for life
Presently, Earth is the only known location where life exists in the Universe.
This year the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to three astronomers...
Scientists map dynamic black hole with light echoes
Although most black holes are too small on the sky for us to resolve their immediate surroundings, we can explore these mysterious objects by...
These two outbound comets are likely interstellar objects
Astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) have analyzed the paths of two objects heading out of the Solar System forever and...
Scientists are taking the temperature of dark matter
Warm, cold, just right?
Physicists at the University of California, Davis are taking the temperature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up about...
In death of dinosaurs, it was all about the asteroid — not volcanoes
Volcanic activity did not play a direct role in the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, according to an international, Yale-led team of...
Galactic collision helped shape our galaxy 11.5 billion years ago
Thanks to some astrophysical sleuthing, researchers have pinpointed an early galactic merger that helped shape the Milky Way.
The merger — a collision, actually —...