Our planet faces a fiery doom inside the sun unless future generations work out how to change its orbit.

New calculations by University of Sussex astronomers predict the Earth will be burnt to a cinder then swallowed up by the sun in about 7.6 billion years. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

Astronomers have sighted a very dense planet-sized object that orbits its parent star in just four days and six hours. picked by AutumnLotus 1 month ago

New images of Pluto and its moons are among the sharpest ever made, astronomers announced today. Pluto, long called a planet, was downgraded last year to "dwarf planet" status by the International Astronomical Union. It is so far away that no clear pictures of it exist. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

A team of physicists and astronomers at the University of Sussex and Imperial College London have uncovered hints that there may be cosmic strings - lines of pure mass-energy - stretching across the entire Universe. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

Astronomers at the University of Rochester have discovered five Earth-oceans’ worth of water that has recently fallen into the planet-forming region around an extremely young, developing star. picked by misswinkle 1 year ago

Astronomers have spotted small galaxies near the beginning of time that resemble ancestors of our own galactic home. The tiny galaxies are about one-tenth to one-twentieth the size of the Milky Way and have 40 times fewer stars. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

A team of astronomers looking at the universe’s distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun.

These young galaxies are the equivalent of a human baby that is 20 inches long, yet weighs 180 pounds. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

Astronomers using the Gemini telescope on top of Mauna Kea have discovered "ice volcanoes" on the little moon Charon circling the far distant dwarf planet Pluto. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

In April, a European team of astronomers announced in Astronomy & Astrophysics the discovery of two possibly habitable Earth-like planets. A&A is now publishing two independent, detailed studies of this system, which confirm that one of the planets might indeed be located within the habitable zone around the star Gliese 581. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months ago

Astronomers have peered into the womb of a stellar disk to capture an image of material falling onto what could be a planet in an early stage of formation. picked by AutumnLotus 8 months ago

Astronomers have announced the discovery of a fifth planet circling 55 Cancri, a star beyond our solar system. The star now holds the record for number of confirmed extrasolar planets orbiting in a planetary system. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Astronomers have long believed that most stars are homebodies which stick close to their birthplaces. But a new simulation supports the suggestion that our sun might have once hitchhiked through the galaxy. picked by AutumnLotus 2 months ago

Saturn's moon Iapetus has virtually no gray. Rather, its features are all stark black and white. The appearance has long puzzled astronomers. New detailed images suggest sunlight is melting ice on one side of Iapetus, leaving the moon's dark surface exposed, while the opposite half retains its reflective ice-mixed shell. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Astronomers have produced a scientific gold mine of detailed, high-quality images of nearby galaxies that is yielding important new insights into many aspects of galaxies, including their complex structures, how they form stars, the motions of gas in the galaxies, the relationship of "normal" matter to unseen "dark matter," and many others. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

Previous estimates had ranged from 750 billion solar masses to up to 2 trillion. Lately, researchers have been leaning toward the higher figure. But now astronomers have used a more refined method to conclude that our galaxy's mass is slightly less than 1 trillion solar masses. picked by AutumnLotus 6 months ago

Astronomers at the Carnegie Institution have found the first indications of highly complex organic molecules in the disk of red dust surrounding a distant star. The eight-million-year-old star, known as HR 4796A, is inferred to be in the late stages of planet formation, suggesting that the basic building blocks of life may be common in planetary systems. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months ago

Traces of a distant extrasolar planet's hazy red sunset have been detected for the first time. Astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at HD 189733b, a gaseous Jupiter-like world about 63 light-years from Earth, as it passed in front of its parent star to catch a glimpse of the planet's atmosphere. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months ago

For the first time, astronomers have observed the initial phase in the formation of an earth-like planet. What astronomers observed was that a protoplanetary disk, or ring, around the binary star known as KH 15D, is composed of solid particles larger than what is usually observed in space. picked by AutumnLotus 8 months ago

Organic molecules – in the form of methane – have been detected on a planet outside our solar system for the first time. The giant planet lies too close to its parent star for the methane to signal life, but the detection offers hope that astronomers will one day be able to analyse the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds. picked by AutumnLotus 9 months ago

Astronomers hunting pulsars have detected a mysterious radio burst unlike anything observed before, and appears to originate from the deepest reaches of the cosmos. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago