Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory have found a lopsided debris disk around a young star known as HD 15115. As seen from Earth, the edge-on disk resembles a needle sticking out from the star. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

XMM-Newton has detected periodic X-ray emission, or the pulsed heartbeat of a weird new type of star. Collecting the X-rays from the so-called rotating radio transient has confirmed the nature of the underlying celestial object and given astronomers a new insight into these exotic objects. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

University of Arizona astronomers who are probing the oxygen-rich environment around a supergiant star with one of the world's most sensitive radio telescopes have discovered a score of molecules that include compounds needed for life. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A massive exploding faraway star _ the brightest supernova astronomers have ever seen _ has scientists wondering whether a similar celestial fireworks show may light up the sky much closer to Earth sometime soon. picked by AutumnLotus 3 years ago

Astronomers have spotted evidence of a second Earth being built around a distant star 424 light-years away. Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a huge belt of warm dust swirling around a young star called HD 113766 that is just slightly larger than our sun. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

By studying in great detail the 'ringing' of a planet-harbouring star, a team of astronomers using ESO's 3.6-m telescope have shown that it must have drifted away from the metal-rich Hyades cluster. This discovery has implications for theories of star and planet formation, and for the dynamics of our Milky Way. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A team of astronomers have found the 'missing link' of stellar death, revealing what our Sun might look like at the end of its life. picked by AutumnLotus 3 months ago

Astronomers have spotted a small group of young stellar "siblings" in a dusty stellar nursery 848 light-years away. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

An international team, led by astronomers at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, have discovered one of the coolest sub-stellar bodies ever found outside our own solar system, orbiting the red dwarf star Wolf 940, some 40 light years from Earth. picked by AutumnLotus 8 months ago

A large star in its death throes is leaving a huge, turbulent tail of oxygen, carbon and nitrogen in its wake that makes it look like an immense comet hurtling through space. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Astronomers may have found another star to add to the Southern Cross, one of the most familiar constellations in the southern sky. picked by Neiako 3 years ago

Astronomers may have discovered the first planet in another galaxy — thought to be six or seven times the size of Jupiter.
In order to find the celestial body, located more than two million light years away, the astronomers used a method called gravitational microlensing. picked by bingo 6 months ago

Stars always evolve in the universe in large groups, known as clusters. Astronomers distinguish these formations by their age and size. The question of how star clusters are created from interstellar gas clouds and why they then develop in different ways has now been answered by researchers at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn with the aid of computer simulations. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A pulsar is the rapidly spinning and highly magnetized core left behind when a massive star explodes. Most of the 1,800 cataloged pulsars were found through their periodic radio emissions. Astronomers believe these pulses are caused by narrow, lighthouse-like radio beams emanating from the pulsar's magnetic poles.

*Includes video picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

Using observations from ESO's VLT, astronomers were able for the first time to reconstruct the site of a flare on a solar-like star located 150 light years away. The study of this young star, nicknamed 'Speedy Mic' because of its fast rotation, will help scientists better understand the youth of our Sun. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A ragged company of stars is rushing through the chaotic core of our galaxy, travelling faster than can easily be explained. The new measurement of its path, made with the 10-metre Keck telescope in Hawaii, US, also deepens a mystery surrounding the Milky Way's central black hole. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Astronomers have shed light on the mysterious origins of the fastest spinning stars known to science - millisecond pulsars.
These are the fastest spinning class of pulsars - dense cosmic bodies that emit radio waves along their magnetic poles. picked by bingo 6 months ago

Dust has been a nuisance because it has obscured galaxies, and the stars within them, by absorbing the radiation they emit. But more recently dust has started to present opportunities because it emits radiation itself as a consequence of being heated up by nearby stars. Aided by new observing instruments and sophisticated computer software, this radiation enables astronomers to reconstruct what li... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

It confirms that Altair, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, is a rapidly spinning, non-spherical body. picked by AutumnLotus 3 years ago

Astronomers have used light echoes from a supernova explosion as a time machine to look again at a historic stellar event first witnessed on Earth more than 400 years ago. The brilliant 'new star' appeared in the sky in 1572 and was so bright it could be seen during the day. It was observed and charted by astronomer Tycho Brahe who discovered it was far away from the moon. picked by AutumnLotus 12 months ago