Two Stars, Three Planet-forming Disks
A young pair of stars hosts three potentially planet-forming disks, and all three of them are wildly tilted with respect to each other.
ALMA Pans for Galactic Gold in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
ALMA, the largest telescope array in the world, took a look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, and revealed the cosmic history of star formation.
Did Ancient Explosions Rock Eta Carinae?
New observations suggest this unstable star let off some steam before its famous 19th century “Great Eruption” . . . but there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
A Galaxy Cluster Caught in Transition?
Astronomers have caught a galaxy cluster in the prime of its life — perhaps just before it transitions to retirement.
Could Spacecraft Make it to Proxima Centauri?
Dust and gas between stars would pose a threat to spacecraft en route from Earth to the Alpha Centauri system — and scientists are seriously considering the problem now that the prospect of interstellar travel is no longer sci-fi.
Tabby’s Star: Weird Star Gets Weirder
A new study on KIC 8462852, the star of alien megastructure fame, finds yearlong trends that effectively rule out the one working theory astronomers had to explain this strange star.
Search for Fourth Neutrino Goes Cold
The Antarctic observatory known as IceCube has ruled out the existence of a fourth type of neutrino particle — and one-time dark matter contender — known as the light sterile neutrino.
No Dark Matter from LUX Experiment
An underground detector reports zero detections of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), the top candidate for mysterious dark matter.
Seeing a Black Hole’s Gravitational Vortex
New observations solve a 30-year-old puzzle of mysterious signals from around black holes.
Doomed Hitomi Gazed at Galaxy Cluster
In its first — and final — month of flight, the Hitomi X-ray observatory measured the calm within the bubbling core of the Perseus Cluster.
Newborn Exoplanets Point to Early Chaos
A recent glut of exoplanet research reveals the early chaos that helped shape planetary systems.
First Chiral Molecule Discovered in Space
The discovery of a chiral molecule in space has the potential to sort out one of the biggest mysteries in the chemistry of life.
The Gaseous Footprints of Baby Planets
Astronomers re-analyzed two-year-old data from the ALMA observatory in Chile and discovered gas gaps that probably indicate baby planets in the disk around a young star.
The Resurgence of the Brightest Supernova
In 2015 ASASSN-15lh gained fame as the most luminous supernova ever discovered. Almost a year later and against all odds, the supernova has rebrightened.
Kepler’s 1,284 Newly Confirmed Planets
Even though Kepler’s primary mission ended three years ago, the data it collected just revealed a mother lode: 1,284 newly confirmed planets.
Light Echoes Map Planet-forming Disk
Light’s finite speed helped astronomers pinpoint the location of the “inner wall” of the disk of dust and gas that’s feeding a fast-growing baby star.
Earth-size Planets Around Nearby Dwarf Star
Astronomers just discovered three planets, two of which are roughly the size of Earth, orbiting a dim nearby dwarf star. Their proximity makes their atmospheres ripe for observing.
Speedy Stars Weigh Milky Way’s Dark Matter Halo
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a . . . pair of hypervelocity stars? The surprising stellar duo may place constraints on the mass of our galaxy’s unseen dark matter halo.
NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Recovered from Emergency Mode
The Kepler team unexpectedly found the planet-hunting spacecraft in emergency mode on April 7th, but with the spacecraft recovered, hopes are high that its newest search, this time for rogue planets, is still on. Read on to see how amateur observations can help!
Dark Dwarf Galaxy Discovered
Astronomers using the ALMA array of radio dishes have detected a dwarf galaxy 4 billion light-years away by the pull of its dark matter.