A spacecraft has spied a spiky “hedgehog” on the sun and watched a solar flare in ways never done before. The Solar Orbiter, a collaboration between the European Space Agency…
Category: Astronomy
Pulsars may power cosmic rays with the highest-known energies in the universe
The windy and chaotic remains surrounding recently exploded stars may be launching the fastest particles in the universe. Highly magnetic neutron stars known as pulsars whip up a fast and…
High-energy neutrinos may come from black holes ripping apart stars
When a star gets too close to a black hole, sparks fly. And, potentially, so do subatomic particles called neutrinos. A dramatic light show results when a supermassive black hole…
We finally have an image of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way
There’s a new addition to astronomers’ portrait gallery of black holes. Astronomers announced May 12 that they have finally assembled an image of the supermassive black hole at the center…
The sun’s searing radiation led to the shuffling of the solar system’s planets
In the solar system’s early years, the still-forming giant planets sidestepped, did a do-si-do and then swung one of their partners away from the sun’s gravitational grasp. Things settled, and…
Gravitational waves gave a new black hole a high-speed ‘kick’
This black hole really knows how to kick back. Scientists recently observed two black holes that united into one, and in the process got a “kick” that flung the newly…
‘Goldilocks’ stars may pose challenges for any nearby habitable planets
If you’re an aspiring life-form, you might want to steer clear of planets around orange dwarf stars. Some astronomers have called these orange suns “Goldilocks stars” (SN: 11/18/09). They are…
Crumbling planets might trigger repeating fast radio bursts
Fragmenting planets sweeping extremely close to their stars might be the cause of mysterious cosmic blasts of radio waves. Milliseconds-long fast radio bursts, or FRBs, erupt from distant cosmic locales.…
A newly discovered planet renews debate about how some giant worlds form
A young, massive planet is orbiting in an unusual place in its star system, and it’s leading researchers to revive a long-debated view of how giant planets can form. The…
A star nicknamed ‘Earendel’ may be the most distant yet seen
A chance alignment may have revealed a star from the universe’s first billion years. If confirmed, this star would be the most distant one ever seen, obliterating the previous record…
