SUNSET: 
What Makes Supernovae Superluminous?
A new technique gives astronomers a closer look at what makes some stellar carnage so incredibly luminous.
Typo Throws Off Timing for Expected Binary Star Merger
Revised data changed expectations for a star pair that was supposed to merge in 2022.
NASA's Cassini Sees Saturn's Towering Polar Hexagon
Cassini's legacy sheds more light on the strange mystery of Saturn's northern polar hexagon.
Jupiter’s Magnetic Field Has Weird Structure
Juno observations reveal that Jupiter’s magnetic field has a wacky plume.
Middleweight Black Holes Provide Window to Early Universe
How did supermassive black holes form? Two studies discovered dozens of middling-mass black holes in dwarf galaxies to fuel an ongoing debate.
Meet Pollux, the Red Giant with a Planet
Meet the stars: Pollux, one of the Twins in the sky, is a star that has swelled into its red giant phase while holding onto its Jupiter-like exoplanet, dubbed Thestias.
Scientists Successfully Predicted the Shape of the Solar Corona
Scientists predicted the shape of the solar corona as it would be seen during the August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse. Observations confirmed that they got the broad strokes right.
Tour September's Sky: Goodbye, Venus!
As told in this month's astronomy podcast, Venus is disappearing in the west after sunset. So September offers you a final chance to see four bright planets at once.
Astronomers "Weigh" Beta Pictoris b
Astronomers have a precise new mass measurement for Beta Pictoris b, a young gas giant still in the throes of formation 63 light-years from Earth.
Osiris-REX's First Views of Asteroid Bennu
NASA's Osiris-REX asteroid sample return mission spies target Bennu for the first time. Now the spacecraft is setting up for its close approach in December.
Arecibo Observatory Emerges from Storm with $6M Upgrade
The famed Arecibo Observatory has faced down several funding challenges in recent years, and a hurricane to boot, but now a new project is making the radio dish more relevant to astronomy than ever.
Direct Evidence of Water Ice at Moon's Poles
After more than a decade of tantalizing but inconclusive hints, new research shows convincingly that patches of water ice lie exposed on the floors of many permanently shadowed lunar craters.
Rover Call Home: NASA Listens for Opportunity's Wake-up
The Opportunity rover fell silent in June after nearly 15 years of work on the Red Planet. Now the dust storm that prevented its batteries from charging is clearing.
60-second Astro News: Three Stunning Astronomy Pictures
In astronomy news this week: A stunning just-released photo of last year's eclipse, 15,000 galaxies revealed in Hubble's new ultraviolet view of the deep sky, and watching star formation in action in the spiral galaxy M74.
Iron and Titanium Found in Ultrahot Jupiter
New observations provide solid evidence of heavy metals in a gas giant exoplanet’s atmosphere.
Planet Formation Caught in the Act
A team of scientists has captured evidence that PDS 70b, the first directly imaged instance of early planet formation, is actively accreting material, and they’ve measured the rate at which it’s growing.
Auroras Discovered Around Rogue Brown Dwarf
Astronomers have discovered auroras around a set of brown dwarfs — including one that wanders the galaxy by itself — indicating surprisingly strong magnetic fields in these failed stars.
The Storm Begins: Canadian Telescope Spots Its First Radio Burst
The first "fast radio burst" detected by the Canadian CHIME radio telescope is a tantalizing hint of what’s to come.
NASA's Parker Solar Probe Launches to "Touch the Sun"
The unique Parker Solar Probe launched on Sunday, August 12th, set to fly faster and come closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before it.
Sibling Rivalry Caused Eta Carinae's Historic Explosion
Faint echoes of light illuminate what really happened during the Great Eruption of the super-star Eta Carinae.
