Astronomy

Astronomy

Cosmic Twist: X’s may mark spots where black holes merge

If whacked by a companion black hole, a big, jet-emitting black hole may spew superhot plasma in a new, crosswise direction.

Astronomy

An assault on comets

Over the next few years, a trio of comet missions, one of which was launched recently, promises to provide the closet look yet at the core of these icy relics from the formation of the solar system.

Astronomy

Moveable Feast: Milky Way dines on its neighbors

Astronomers have found new evidence that the Milky Way is a cannibal, devouring streams of stars from its nearest galactic neighbors.

Astronomy

Pluto or bust?

A new National Research Council report may revive plans to send a spacecraft to explore Pluto and its neighborhood.

Astronomy

Dying star illuminates its own shroud

Images of a planetary nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 but only recently assembled as a color composite, show a shroud of material cast off and ionized by the dying, sunlike star Henize 3-401.

Astronomy

Chandra eyes low-temperature black hole

An observatory in space has detected the coolest black hole yet found

Astronomy

X-ray observatory captures a rare supernova

Astronomers have obtained the first portrait of X-ray emission from a rare, so-called Ic supernova.

Astronomy

Let There Be Spin

X-ray outbursts from two different pairs of stars in our Milky Way are providing clues about how the most rapidly rotating stars in the universe got their spin.

Astronomy

Hubble Space Telescope: Eye wide open

Two months after the failure of a fourth gyroscope shut it down, and 3 weeks after a shuttle crew paid it a service call, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business.

Astronomy

Planetary System in the Making? Stellar eclipse hints at planet-forming debris

Astronomers reported the first evidence that a young star is periodically eclipsed by a stream of debris, possibly an orbiting belt of asteroids held in place by a massive, unseen planet.

Astronomy

Outlier Planet: Extrasolar places that are like home

A team of veteran hunters of planets outside the solar system has come up with a landmark finding: a Jupiterlike planet orbiting a Sunlike star at a Jupiterlike distance.

Astronomy

X-ray Data Reveal Black Holes Galore

Using a sensitive, new X-ray telescope, astronomers have identified the origin of the high-energy part of the X-ray background and found that supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies are far more numerous than visible-light surveys indicate.