Currently the best place to search for life beyond the solar system. TRAPPIST-1 is an ultracool dwarf star -- it is much cooler and redder than the Sun and barely larger than Jupiter.
Crisp, clear images of a "hot Jupiter" system captured by a physicist were vital in determining that a newly found planet inhabits a three-star system, a phenomenon documented only a few times before.
While we sit here on Earth looking up in wonder at how awesome our star, the Sun, is, astronomers have just found a stable planet inside a triple-star system that makes our Solar System seem rather boring.
Astronomers report that they have observed the most luminous galaxies ever seen in the Universe, objects so bright that established descriptors such as 'ultra-' and 'hyper-luminous' used to describe previously brightest known galaxies don't even come close.
Research has found new persuasive evidence that could help solve a longstanding mystery in astrophysics: why did the pace of star formation in the universe slow down some 11 billion years ago?
This animation is based on photometric observations made by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. By closely monitoring the star KSN 2011d, located 1.2 billion light-years away, Kepler caught the onset of the early flash and subsequent explosion.
University of Washington astronomers have identified a rare type of supernova
Astronomers have found the largest known solar system, linking together a star and what was thought to be a free-floating 'lonely planet' in orbit some 1 trillion (1 million million) kilometres away from its sun.
Someone hug Interstellar’s science advisor. Just like in the film, a new study finds that a black hole with exactly the right temperature could serve as a cold sun and even support complex lifeforms.
Origin of exploding star that is twice as luminous as any other remains unclear. Seven months after it was first spotted, a puzzle still hangs over the origin of the brightest supernova ever seen.
Like a blinding beacon lighting up the night, a powerful gamma-ray-generating stellar husk has been seen pulsating in a neighboring galaxy.
Astronomers at the University of Maryland, observed the event, which is the closest tidal disruption discovered in about a decade.
Nearly 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was made of only hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium — byproducts of the Big Bang. Some 300 million years later, the very first stars emerged, creating additional chemical elements throughout the universe. Since then, giant stellar explosions, or supernovas, have given rise to carbon, oxygen, iron and the rest of the 94 naturally occurring elements of the periodic table.
A team of European astronomers has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to track down a star in the Milky Way that many thought was impossible. They discovered that this star is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with only remarkably small amounts of other chemical elements in it. This intriguing composition places it in the “forbidden zone” of a widely accepted theory of star formation, meaning that it should never have come into existence in the first place. The results will appear in the 1 September 2011 issue of the journal Nature.
