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Astrophysicists are stunned to see a black hole "burping" several years after having a meal

The "burp" is traveling at half the speed of light.

Almost two billion stars: Largest, most detailed star catalog to date revealed

The European Space Agency released its treasure trove of stars.

Why do stars twinkle, or do they twinkle at all? For astronomers, this is important

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Astronomers find the farthest evidence of fluoride to date, in a distant galaxy

This will teach us a lot about how the element forms in the Universe.

We've found a dead star that's about as large as the Moon, but weighs more than the Sun

Space is full of surprises.

How hot is the sun?

I have it on very good authority that it's more than 20 degrees, for sure.

Europe's most powerful solar telescope lets us see its surface and spots up close

Up close and per-Sun-al.

Partial supernova sends a white dwarf barrelling through space

Why not start with a bang, eh?

The types of stars -- a hot, bright journey through the universe

Stars come in many shapes and flavors.

Could wormholes actually exist?

A new study describes a technique that could be used to find wormholes.

We know something more about dark energy: it isn't a fundamental force

We still don't know what dark energy *is*, but we found out another thing it isn't.

Astronomers find one of the oldest stars in the Universe

The other star we've found so far has so little iron -- a key indicator that it was forged close to the dawn of the universe.

TESS telescope discovers three intriguing close-by exoplanets

The solar system is very different from our own.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe Could Help Solve One of the Mysteries of Our Sun

The temperature around the sun is millions of times hotter than the sun's surface itself.

Researchers spot the first coronal mass ejection outside our solar system -- it was massive

It was tens of thousands of times more massive than the ones our Sun puts out.

This star is so massive it's forming another star instead of planets

Now, that's a first!

We're living in the Milky Way, version 2.0

Our galaxy is like a phoenix.

Scientists spot traces of titanium in scorching hot planet's atmosphere

The planet is almost as hot as the Sun.a

We may have just witnessed a close-by star devour the remnants of a planet

Gluttony? Tsk tsk tsk.

Every point of light in this photo is a galaxy

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

The constellation Vela explodes with color (and new suns) in ESO-captured snaps

Space -- the prettiest frontier.

Astronomers capture first images of an exoplanet forming

All babies are adorable, right?

How to "Weigh" Baby Planets

Weighing without using a scale.

Scientists complete most precise star map, revealing hidden details in our galaxy

An incredibly fruitful mission sheds new secrets about the Milky Way.

Astronomers find the most distant star ever, looking through a galactic magnifying glass

The findings might help piece together the evolution of the universe.

Some 70,000 years ago, a rogue star duo whooshed by our solar system -- and early humans probably saw it

If you happened to be alive 70,000 years ago, you'd be in for quite a show.

In the Pisces constellation, one star is busy devouring its own planetary offspring

Giving "family dinner" a whole new meaning.

Biomarker molecule discovered "in abundance" around alien star, but still no life

Turns out, planet farts are just like ours, but with chlorine!

The sun likely has a lost twin called 'Nemesis', as do most stars like it

It sounds like the plot of a bad movie -- but it's just science.

Researchers found a supermassive black hole choking on its meal

Greedy!

Black holes turn stars into spaghetti, devours them, then burp fire

If there's one thing that black holes do extremely well, it's drawing things to them and destroying them.

ESA's Gaia observatory sends back first star chart showing a billion new stars

Seeing is believing.

First stars formed much later than we thought

The European Space Agency's Planck satellite has revealed some information which may force us to rethink the evolution of the early Universe.

Star blast reveals water 'snowline' for first time ever

This space snow could help scientists better understand planet formation and evolution.

Origami battery that runs on a few drops of water could revolutionize biosensors

This disposable battery runs on bacteria and folds like an origami ninja star. Sold!

Lonely planet found in a family of stars

NASA astronauts have discovered a lonely planetary-like mass floating on its own, without a solar system. Imagine a galaxy, riddled with countless solar systems. Then zoom in slowly on a solar system – how do you picture it? There’s probably a star at the center, and several planets around it. That’s generally where we feel […]

Hubble captures the death of a star, offering a glimpse of our sun's final days

A spectacular image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) gives us a glimpse into how the Sun will look at its death.

3,200-year-old papyrus contains astrophysical information about the Algol star

Many ancient civilizations made astronomical notes, but according to researchers, this is the earliest historical document of naked eye observations on a variable star – Algol. Variable stars are stars with a varying brightness (as seen from Earth), and they probably held a special place in Egyptian astronomy – they made careful notes on these […]

Newborn star fires lightsaber: as seen by Hubble

This celestial lightsaber does not lie in a galaxy far, far away, but rather inside our home galaxy.

Scientists find a tiny star with a huge storm -- just like Jupiter's

While the windy and overcast weather of a stormy day isn't surprising on telluric planets, it's not something most of us readily associate with stars. But it does happen -- the best evidence for this is W1906+40, a distant dwarf star recently described in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Newly discovered star's chemistry puzzles researchers

A team of Argentinian astronomers, peering up in the night's sky from the Astronomical Observatory of Córdoba has found a new, young lithium-rich giant star that they designated KIC 9821622. And they can't explain where that lithium comes from.

Something is blocking light from a distant star, and one of the possibilities is an alien structure

It's likely not aliens, but it could be - and it's really, really strange.

How to weigh a star: a new mathematical method

A novel mathematical model can weigh the mass of a pulsar - a rapidly rotating magnetized neutran star - using principles of nuclear physics, rather than gravity. Up until now, the mass of a star could only be determined in relation with other bodies, based on the gravitational pull these exerted. Now, using the new model scientists will be able to study pulsars in isolation, allowing for more precise measurements than ever before.

Incredibly active galaxy cluster creates 800 stars every year

The gargantuan cluster is 9.8 billion light years away from us, houses at least 27 galaxies and has a combined mass equal to 400 trillion Suns.

Scientists find the sound of stars

A chance discovery has provided experimental evidence that stars may generate sound. While he was examining the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, John Parsley from the University of York found that interfering plasma generates a series of pressure pulses - in other words, sounds.

Supernova flings star out of the Milky Way - it's the fastest moving star ever

Astronomers have discovered a star racing at a incredible pace of 2.6 million miles an hour (4.2 million kilometers an hour), making it the fastest moving star discovered thus far. It's so fast that it should exit our galaxy and turn into an intergalactic rogue. It doesn't stop here. Such celestial oddities are believed to be spurred in motion by the extreme gravitational tugs found in the vecinity of supermassive black holes, such as the one found at the core of the Milky Way. The new found road runner, however, was most likely flung outward by a Type Ia supernova, one of the most powerful and brightest bursts of energy in the universe. Little is know about such stellar explosions, and the hypervelocity star might submit some valuable clues.

Most detailed picture EVER of a new planet being born

Some 450 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, a new planet is being born and astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile were there to capture the moment. It’s the most detailed picture documenting a planetary-forming system. The cutest planetary baby picture “This is truly one of the most remarkable images ever seen at these […]

Astronomers find the sun's first sibling: a star made of the same stuff

In what’s considered the first find out of a slew to follow, a team of astronomers have identified a star that originated out of the same matter as our own sun. In lack of a better analogy, the two are siblings and probably share many more sisters. Apart from telling us where in the galaxy […]

Kepler telescope - Earth size planets number '17 billion'

Astronomers working on the Kepler telescope believe that every 1 in 6 stars hosts at least an Earth-sized planet in a close orbit, raising the number of such planets in our galaxy to 17 billion. Finding planets Astrophysicists also announced 461 new planet candidates discovered by the telescope; this raises the number of planets discovered […]

Astronomers capture light from first stars using bright galaxies

I gotta say, sometimes it absolutely baffles me to see the kind of complex studies astrophysicists do, and this is definitely one of them. The light from the first stars in the Universe is still lingering around in the cosmos, and researchers have found a new way to capture it: using ultra-bright galaxies that act […]