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 11 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 10 months ago

University of Arizona astronomers have pinpointed the origin of powerful bursts from nature's most magnetic objects. The bursts are from "magnetars," some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months 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 1 year ago

US astronomers have discovered the biggest black hole orbiting a star 1.8 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, with a record-setting mass of 24 to 33 times that of our Sun. The massive newcomer beats the previous stellar-mass black hole discovered October 17 in the M33 galaxy that has 16 times the mass of our Sun. picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

Astronomers have spotted a small group of young stellar "siblings" in a dusty stellar nursery 848 light-years away. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Astronomers are baffled after finding an exotic type of star called a pulsar apparently locked in an elongated orbit around a star much like the sun -- an arrangement defying what had been known about such objects. picked by AutumnLotus 3 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 12 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 10 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

Astronomers can't see black holes. And they definitely can't go out and grab a piece of one to measure its mass.

So how do they weigh them? picked by AutumnLotus 1 year 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 1 year ago

A team of amateur and professional astronomers has discovered a mammoth orb more than 13 times the mass of Jupiter that whips around its parent star in fewer than four days and is considered an "oddball" planet among its exoplanet relatives. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year 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 1 year ago

Astronomers, including one at The University of Arizona, have successfully predicted the existence of an unknown planet, the first since Neptune was predicted in the 1840s. This planet, however, is outside our own solar system, circling a star a little more than 200 light years from Earth. picked by AutumnLotus 7 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 10 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

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has spotted an unusual comet that flies around the sun at regular intervals. Dubbed P/2007 R5 (SOHO), the object belongs to a rare class of comets called periodic comets. Only 190 of the thousands of known comets are periodic. picked by AutumnLotus 11 months 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 9 months ago

If the universe has weird extra-spatial dimensions in parallel to the 3D world we see around us, then billion-dollar particle accelerators may not be the only place to find them. picked by DrNothing 1 year ago