Space

The double sunset that Luke Skywalker gazed upon in the film "Star Wars" might not be a fantasy. Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have observed that planetary systems – dusty disks…

Astronomers using data from several X-ray satellites have caught a magnetar – the remnant of a massive star with an incredibly strong magnetic field – in a sort of giant cosmic blench. When it comes…

In a galaxy far, far away, a massive star suffered a nasty double whammy. On Oct. 20, 2004, Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki saw the star let loose an outburst so bright that it was…

NGC 1672, visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is seen almost face on and shows regions of intense star formation. The greatest concentrations of star formation are found in the so-called starburst…

Astronomers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have produced the first images of the sky from a prototype of the Long Wavelength Array (LWA), a revolutionary new radio telescope to be…

Combining precise observations obtained by ESO's Very Large Telescope with those gathered by a network of smaller telescopes, astronomers have described in unprecedented detail the double asteroid…

Gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the brief flashes of light signalling distant, extremely energetic events, have been elusive targets for astronomical observation. (It's something like the fairground game of…

From Mary, in response to my request for more information about the scientists who gave us the YORP effect: "O'Keefe was my father. He was also responsible for discovering that the earth is (slightly…

An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with the Cassini mission. This atmospheric feature was already imaged by…

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has shown how to use the chemical composition of stars in clusters to shed light on the formation of our Milky Way. This…