Space

When is a theory not a theory?  When no one can even agree on what the theory is and competing ones are disproved once a year. Astronomers disagree about why they see more light in the universe…

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth other than our own sun.  So one would think if it had planets, we would know by now, right?  Wrong, apparently.  Astronomers just…

International astronomical photographers have created a catalog of over 84 million stars in the central parts of the Milky Way; 10X more stars than previous catalogs and a great leap forward in…

Blasting over two million lights years from the center of a distant galaxy, PKS 0637-752 is a 'supersonic jet' of material that looks a lot like the afterburner flow of a fighter jet - but in this…

Star-forming galaxies take the form of orderly disk-shaped systems, like the Andromeda Galaxy or the Milky Way, where rotation dominates over other internal motions. The most distant blue galaxies in…

A Gemini Legacy image has captured the colorful and dramatic tale of a life-and-death struggle between two galaxies interacting. All the action appears in a single frame, with the stunning polar-ring…

Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud was close enough to be seen by the naked eye when its light first reached Earth in February of 1987.  During the explosion's peak, fingerprints of…

How would we recognize truly alien life on a planet that is probably like a half molten Venus, and why we don't even bother trying.  How could we detect any kind  life…

A planet around the mass of the Earth has been found, orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system; the nearest to Earth and also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun.…

A rocky planet twice Earth's size, called 55 Cancri e, that orbits a nearby star is likely a diamond planet, according to new research. 55 Cancri e has a radius twice Earth's and a mass eight…