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 8 months ago

This is the second best start in franchise history. (One more win will tie best start)

Check out the video for a phenominal shoot-out shot by Ryan Shannon and even more phenominal stop by Turco! picked by icepigs 2 years ago

A class of "failed" star called a brown dwarf emits beams of radiation that are thousands of times brighter than any released by the Sun. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

XMM-Newton has surveyed nearly two hundred stars under formation to reveal, contrary to expectations, how streams of matter fall onto the young stars’ magnetic atmospheres and radiate X-rays. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Twinkling stars are often compared with diamonds, sparkling and bright. Stars are made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium with traces of other elements; diamonds are made of carbon. However, there are real diamonds in the sky, and they derive from the fiery furnaces that make stars shine. picked by AutumnLotus 10 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 7 months 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

Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Called "Rho Oph" by astronomers, it's one of the closest star-forming regions to our own solar system. Located near the constellations Scorpius and Ophiuchus, the nebula is about 407 light years away from Earth. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

The colorful, intricate shapes in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveal how the glowing gas ejected by dying Sun-like stars evolves dramatically over time. picked by AutumnLotus 12 months 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 8 months ago

A pair of newfound stars orbit each other so closely that they share material, taking on the appearance of a giant peanut in space. picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

Invisible magnetic field lines twisted like long ropes of DNA help stars spiral into life. New stars form from enormous clouds of gas and dust collapse under their own gravity into dense spheres. The packed cores are ignited by thermonuclear reactions. As they collapse, the clouds rotate, and like an ice skater pulling in his arms while spinning, rotation speed increases as the collapsing cloud ge... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 10 months ago

Newborn stars shine like celestial sparklers in a new portrait of the nearby Triangulum Galaxy – the most detailed ultraviolet image of a galaxy ever taken. Astronomers will use the image, taken by NASA's Swift telescope, to create an "age map" of the galaxy's components to understand how galaxies evolve over time. picked by AutumnLotus 6 months ago

The Dallas Stars President, Jim Lites, tries to explain to Stars fans and season ticket holders why sitting on your hands during the free agent period is a good thing. picked by icepigs 1 year ago

Picture a cool place, teeming with a multitude of hot bodies twirling about in rapidly changing formations of singles and couples, partners and groups, constantly dissolving and reforming. If you were thinking of the dance floor in a modern nightclub, think again. It's a description of the shells around dying stars, the place where newly formed elements make compounds and life takes off. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

For two consecutive years, the Stars are knocked out of the playoffs by Colorado. This year, the Stars season opens where it ended....in Colorado. picked by icepigs 2 years 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 10 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

What is the magic "X factor" that determines which stars become the biggest and brightest in the universe? The answer, new calculations suggest, is how dense their parent gas clouds are. Denser clouds heat up more evenly, preventing the clouds from fragmenting into lots of tiny stars and allowing one or two big stars to form instead. picked by AutumnLotus 6 months ago