On the night of March 11, 1437, Korean astronomers recorded a strange light low in the sky, in the tail of the constellation Scorpius. It must have been at least as bright as the North Star, Polaris, maybe even as bright as the stars of the Big Dipper. Fourteen days later, the light disappeared.
There are few downsides to new observations, but confusion might be one of them. New stellar images bring mysteries that will take more time and effort to understand. That’s offset by how freaking detailed scientists can start producing these pictures, and of course, scientists like hearing that there’s more work to…
It’s easy to feel small and insignificant in the grandiose scope of the universe, because we are. At the same time, as Carl Sagan once reminded us, we’re made of the same “star stuff” as the cosmos. All too often, we forget how random, ridiculous, and resplendent it is to part of the stellar sorority of the universe.…
The Sun and Proxima Centauri and most of the stars you’ve heard of orbit the center of the Milky Way galaxy like children peacefully riding a carousel (with some weirdness caused by dark matter that we don’t need to get into). Now, imagine if a few toddlers were sprinting and shrieking across the peaceful scene. Who…
Orion is the Beyonce of constellations. Pretty much everyone has heard of it and seen it (you can even see it in New York despite the light pollution). It’s hard not to like it. And if you spend some time studying its behavior and meaning, you’ll only appreciate its intricacies even more.
On Thursday, May 4th, Hubble dropped a “cute” press release comparing a new image of a galaxy cluster to the Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2. It was a timely yet mega-dad corny way to make the image of the galaxy cluster Abell 370 seem relevant. While there’s literally no connection between the James Gunn…
As a passenger on an airplane, it’s not easy to shoot footage from your plane’s tiny window. But when you’re the pilot, with a large window to watch the night sky, you it’s possible to capture some amazing aerial footage of the Milky Way.
When it comes to cool space pictures, supernovae get all the credit. After all, who doesn’t love a good star death? But new images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile reveal a stunning star birth that gives those supernova snaps a run for their money. It looks just like a firework,…
The marital feuds of strangers have long intrigued our degenerate species. It’s a timeless topic that keeps several magazines afloat, even if literally none of the details are true. But what most don’t know is that celebrities (and commoners) aren’t the only ones who get divorced—sometimes, actual stars do, too.
Don’t get me wrong, black holes are cool but they’re also giant voids of terror: These gravitational abysses have been known to snack on stars in occurrences called Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs). It’s always the same horror story—an unsuspecting star wanders too close to a black hole, only to get ripped apart by the…
There’s a star about 370 light-years from here that’s pulsating in response to its unusually heavy planetary companion. It’s the first time that astronomers have seen this sort of interaction between a planet and its host star.
Calling all space cadets: Today, a group of researchers led by the Carnegie Institute of Science released an impressive database containing 61,000 so-called Doppler velocity measurements of 1,600 nearby stars. The team is graciously inviting you to use their data to find the next exoplanet. Go forth and become drunk…
A typical lunch outing with friends lasts about an hour-and-a-half. If it’s bottomless brunch, maybe tack on a few more hours. But supermassive black holes don’t care for our human constructions of time—it turns out they’ll eat for a decade if they choose.
Perishing alone in space—in a gaseous cloud of stench—ranks pretty highly on the list of Terrible Ways to Die. Sadly, that was the fate of one unfortunate star trapped in the Calabash Nebula, nicknamed the “Rotten Egg Nebula” due to its high sulphur content. If you’ve ever smelled sulphur—or dog farts—you already…
A long time ago in two galaxies far, far away, there was quite the kerfuffle. New research suggests that about 200 million years ago, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 160,000 lightyears from Earth, got into an intergalactic altercation with its younger sibling, the Small…
Across the universe, unsuspecting galaxies are literally getting the life sucked out of them. Though the culprit is still at large, a team of researchers at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia is working tirelessly to crack the case—and to restore law and order.
New research suggests that Tabby’s star—the celestial object voted most likely to host an alien megastructure—is acting weirdly because it recently annihilated an entire planet, and the shattered remains of that planet are now producing strange flickering effects. It’s probably the best theory we’ve heard so far.
It’s not often that a new body appears in the night sky—aside from meteors and the occasionally comet, things tend to look pretty much the same. Now, astronomers predict that a pair of stars so close they’re basically touching will collide and create a so-called red nova, resulting in a bright explosion visible to the…
For years, scientists have known that Gliese 710 will come excruciatingly close to our Solar System in about a million years. An updated analysis suggests this star will come considerably closer than we thought, during which time it’s expected to spawn dangerous cometary swarms.
Stars are not perfect spheres owing to centrifugal force. But there’s a star about 5,000 light-years from here that scientists now say is the roundest natural object ever measured in the universe.
