41–60 of 94 results
Artist’s illustration of a magnetar

Stellar Science

An Infant Pulsar Defies Categorization

The discovery of the youngest pulsar yet has lead astronomers to question the current classification system of these objects.

Artist's impression of Beta Pictoris

Exoplanets

Alignment of a Star and a Planet

Unlike in our solar system, not all planets orbit in the same direction as their stars rotate. A nearby planetary system may reveal how these orbits form.

Asteroid illustration

Solar System

Exploring Links Between Nearby Asteroids

In preparation for the launch of Destiny+, a new study reveals that two near-Earth asteroids may share the same parent.

Artist's illustration of a possibly disintegrating planet

Exoplanets

Are We Watching a Planet Disintegrate?

Among the wealth of exoplanets we’ve discovered beyond our solar system, some are temperate, some less so. New observations have now revealed what may be a particularly inhospitable environment: a planet literally disintegrating as it orbits its host.

Black Holes

What Kinds of Black Hole Partners Merge?

New research on black hole mergers reveals that the black hole pairs tend to have similar masses — suggesting that they start out as massive stellar pairs.

Exoplanets

Rescuing an Overlooked Planet

The Kepler False Positive Working Group has identified an Earth sized planet in the habitable zone of a M-dwarf star that was marked as a false positive.

Comet Borisov

Solar System

A Detailed View of Our Second Interstellar Visitor

What do we know about the second object to visit us from another stellar system? Detailed Hubble images have given us plenty to consider!

Stellar Science

Faint Repetitions of an Extragalactic Burst

New evidence deepens the mystery of fast radio bursts (FRBs), the brief flashes of radio emission stemming from unknown sources beyond our galaxy.

Pulsar

Astronomy & Observing News

An Extreme Pulsar Seen in Gamma Rays

One of the fastest spinning radio pulsars known has now been detected to pulse in gamma rays, too. What can we learn from these new observations?

Supermassive Black hole

Black Holes

The Appearance of a Black Hole’s Shadow

In April of this year, the Event Horizon Telescope captured the first detailed images of the shadow of a black hole. In a new study, a team of scientists has now explored what determines the size and shape of black hole shadows like this one.

Artist's illustration of pulsar Geminga

Cosmology

Should We Blame Pulsars for Too Much Antimatter?

A new study suggests that pulsars are not the source of an unexpected surplus of antimatter particles detected by a space-based experiment. Dark matter remains a viable alternative explanation.

Exoplanets

Two Eyes to Hunt Stray Planet Masses

How can we measure the masses of free-floating planets wandering around our galaxy? A new study identifies one approach that combines the power of two upcoming missions.

Boyajian's Star (art)

Stellar Science

Are There More Stars Like Boyajian’s Star?

Remember KIC 8462852, better known as Boyajian’s star (or you may have seen it referred to as the “alien megastructure” star)? We still don’t have a definitive explanation for this source’s odd behavior — in part because we thought that Boyajian’s star was one-of-a-kind.

Saturn's Rings

Solar System

Planetary History Written in Saturn’s Rings

Saturn is subtly pulsing and oscillating — and those oscillations impose a pattern on its rings that could tell us about the planet’s history.

Pisces–Eridanus stellar stream

Stellar Science

A Nearby Stellar Stream Gets Carded

The stellar stream Pisces–Eridanus may try to pass itself off as a billion years old, but scientists are calling its bluff.

Lensing white dwarf

Stellar Science

An “Impossible” White Dwarf Identified in Kepler Data

Meet the white dwarf that defies all expectations.

Exomoon (art)

Exoplanets

Exomoon or No Exomoon?

Last October, the first discovery of a potential exomoon was announced. But is Kepler-1625b-i an actual moon in another solar system? Or just an artifact of data reduction?

Superluminous supernova (artist's impression)

Stellar Science

A Link Between Fast Radio Bursts, Magnetars, and Supernovae?

What causes the bizarre, extragalactic fast radio bursts we’ve detected over the last decade? An unusually bright supernova may hold the answer.

Buckyball

aas nova

Hubble Confirms Interstellar Buckyballs

From a jumble of confusing clues in Hubble observations of interstellar space, scientists have picked out evidence of a celebrity molecule: ionized Buckminsterfullerene, or buckyballs.

Super-puff exoplanet

Exoplanets

Inflating a Super-Puff Planet

Super-puffy exoplanets are a problem. They shouldn’t exist — and yet we've detected half a dozen of them. Here's what theory might be getting wrong.

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