Space

And now the news from Alpha Centauri…(Oh, I’ve waited for so long to utter those words! News. From Alpha Centauri. Wow!) After an incredible decade, in which the number of planets known…

The dwarf planet Makemake is about two thirds of the size of Pluto and farther from the Sun - but closer than Eris, the most massive so-called dwarf planet in the Solar System after the confusing…

The Exoplanet next door: Astronomers have discovered the lowest-mass planet yet orbiting a Sun-like star. But the even-more exciting news is that it orbits α Centauri B, a member…

The planetary nebula Abell 30 is located 5,500 light-years from Earth and it has given astronomers a lookl at a dying Sun-like star that came briefly back to life after giving up the stellar ghost,…

A new image of supernova remnant W44, which combines far-infrared and X-ray data from ESA’s Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories, shows the aftershock of a stellar explosion rippling through…

Astronomers have identified a body that is very probably a planet wandering through space -  without a parent star. This is the closest such object to oue Solar System,  a distance of about…

We're not that special, says new research led by the Centre for Star and Planet Formation at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. About 4.567 billion years ago, our…

Solar systems with life-bearing planets are, so far, unique.  There is only one.  But they would be rare anyway, if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right…

The giant asteroid Vesta is constantly stirring its outermost layer, according to data from NASA's Dawn mission that show that a form of weathering that occurs on the moon and other airless bodies we…

Does the nearby star Fomalhaut host a massive exoplanet? It depends on who you ask.  A new paper says that the planet, named Fomalhaut b, is a rare and possibly unique object that is completely…