The discovery of a runaway star in Hubble's image of the Orion Nebula suggests a stellar tussle ejected three stars 540 years ago.
A new study of six young, star-forming galaxies suggests they have less dark matter than expected. But the results may say more about galaxy evolution than about the nature of dark matter.
Winds that charge away from supermassive black holes at a fraction of the speed of light have long been mysterious and even contentious. Now, new evidence sheds light on their origins.
Hankering to discover new solar systems or understand our own? These citizen science projects and public data troves will help you fill your free time.
Scientists are studying 400-year-old data to predict space weather in the coming decades — and it seems that future may hold fewer Northern Lights.
Unlucky stars serve as brilliant but short-lived snacks when they wander too close to supermassive black holes. But one such black hole is still gnawing on its stellar meal after a decade.
Observations of lensed quasars suggest the universe is expanding more quickly than we thought. But they contradict what we know about the young universe.
Astronomers don’t understand how the galaxy’s most massive stars form, but a new simulation sheds light on the process of stellar birth.
Stellar streams are the remains of dwarf galaxies that once orbited the Milky Way. We showcase here stunning images of these galactic ghosts.
Astronomers have observed the motion of distant star clusters to measure our galaxy’s mass. The new estimate places the Milky Way in the lightweight class of galaxies.
Every now and then, the Milky Way’s central, supermassive black hole tears apart a star and flings away some of its innards. Now astronomers think they know how to spot these cosmic spitballs.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has gazed at a small patch of sky for almost 12 weeks, revealing 1,008 X-ray-emitting sources — most of them supermassive black holes.
An incredible blaze of light discovered more than a year ago still has astronomers baffled as to its cause - and the answer may be contrary to recent headlines.
Scientists have been looking for decades to confirm a weird quantum effect first predicted in 1936. Have they finally found hard evidence for it?
Asteroseismologists delving into the Kepler mission's data trove have found a star that appears to be more spherical than any natural object.
Three teams of astronomers used the SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope to image protoplanetary disks around nearby stars and catch planet formation in action.
Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole in a stripped-down galaxy racing away from a near-fatal close encounter in the center of a galaxy cluster.
Astronomers have imaged a third star embedded in the spiral disk around a pair of baby stars, the first direct evidence of a process of star formation known as disk fragmentation.
Astronomers have mapped neutral atomic hydrogen, which profuses the space between stars, in unprecedented detail to create a beautiful radio-wavelength portrait of the Milky Way.
Two sources tens of millions of light-years away have sent puzzling X-ray flares blazing our way. Now astronomers think they might have the answer: intermediate-mass black holes.
A young pair of stars hosts three potentially planet-forming disks, and all three of them are wildly tilted with respect to each other.
ALMA, the largest telescope array in the world, took a look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, and revealed the cosmic history of star formation.
New observations suggest this unstable star let off some steam before its famous 19th century “Great Eruption” . . . but there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
Astronomers have caught a galaxy cluster in the prime of its life — perhaps just before it transitions to retirement.
Dust and gas between stars would pose a threat to spacecraft en route from Earth to the Alpha Centauri system — and scientists are seriously considering the problem now that the prospect of interstellar travel is no longer sci-fi.