Astronomers at the University of Rochester, home to one of the world’s largest groups of planetary nebulae specialists, have announced that low-mass stars and possibly even super-Jupiter-sized planets may be responsible for creating some of the most breathtaking objects in the sky. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

Hundreds of millions — or even billions — of years after planets would have initially formed around two unusual stars, a second wave of planetesimal and planet formation appears to be taking place. "This is a new class of stars, ones that display conditions now ripe for formation of a second generation of planets, long, long after the stars themselves formed." picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

In a find that sheds light on how Earth-like planets may form, astronomers this week reported finding the first evidence of small, sandy particles orbiting a newborn solar system at about the same distance as the Earth orbits the sun. picked by AutumnLotus 7 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 12 months ago

Watching the stars set from the surface of the Earth may be a romantic pastime but when a spacecraft does it from orbit, it can reveal hidden details about a planet’s atmosphere. It works by watching stars from space, while they drop behind the atmosphere of a planet under investigation, before disappearing from view below the planet’s horizon. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months ago

Galaxies tend to give birth to their stars on the road, while travelling down intergalactic highways towards cosmic cities called galaxy clusters, new Spitzer Space Telescope observations reveal. Galaxies in relatively empty regions of the universe flock towards densely populated galaxy clusters, attracted there by the clusters' gravity. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

Astronomers have taken a baby step in trying to answer the cosmic question of where we come from. Planets and much on them, including humans, come from dust — mostly from dying stars. But where did the dust that helped form those early stars come from? A NASA telescope may have spotted one of the answers. It's in the wind bursting out of super-massive black holes. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

A quartet of stars has been discovered in an intimate cosmic dance, swirling around each other within a region about the same as Jupiter's orbit around the sun. Astronomers say a gaseous disk might have once engulfed and pushed the stars into their tight orbits. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

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 1 year ago

Debris spots found on stars reveal planets that went splat like bugs on a windshield. The finding could help unravel mysteries of planet formation. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Einstein's predicted warping of space-time has been discovered around neutron stars, the most dense observable matter in the universe. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Like a cosmic Grim Reaper, a blast of ultraviolet light signals the violent death of the universe's most massive stars. Now astronomers have viewed this heavenly harbinger for the first time. picked by AutumnLotus 4 months ago

As of July 20, the latest available date, 246 extrasolar planets had been detected circling other stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Among them are 25 alien "solar systems" consisting of two, three or four bodies orbiting single suns. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Edwin Hubble once called IC 10 “one of the most curious objects in the sky,” and new observations of the extremely faint, lightweight dwarf galaxy are giving scientists new clues about how populations of stars are born. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year 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 1 year ago

Dusty infrared galaxies are cosmic "nurseries" for some of the universe's hottest young stars -- and new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that when the universe was approximately six billion years old, these galaxies packed into the densest "zip codes" in space. Astronomers hope that this latest finding will give them insights into why the modern universe look... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 12 months ago

What has appeared as a mild-mannered elliptical galaxy in previous studies is revealing its wild side in new images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble photos show shells of stars around a bright quasar, known as MC2 1635+119, which dominates the center of the galaxy. The shells' presence indicates a titanic clash with another galaxy in the relatively recent past. picked by AutumnLotus 12 months ago

Astronomers think they’ve got a handle on how Sun-sized stars come together. But the formation of the largest stars - more than 10 times the mass of the Sun - still puzzle astronomers.

New observations may change that... picked by 2manyusernames 2 years ago

Two old stars appear to be gearing up for a second generation of planet formation, a phenomenon astronomers say they have never seen before. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

Astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies, and gas, and the mysterious, unseen "dark matter." While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago