‘Space archaeology’ reveals history of giant spiral galaxy
An artist’s impression shows the giant spiral galaxy NGC 1365 as it collides and merges with a smaller companion galaxy, stirring up star formation and redistributing gas and heavy elements. Using a new ‘space archaeology’ technique that reads the chemical...
The birth of a magnetar
A spinning magnetar twists space-time itself, causing the disk of material around it to wobble and produce the ultra-bright flashes of this peculiar kind of supernova. Credit: Joseph Farah and Curtis McCully of Las Cumbres Observatory. Astronomers have captured the...
Unseen planet or brown dwarf may have hidden ‘rare’ fading star
An artist’s impression of the stellar dimming event caused by a brown dwarf or super-Jupiter with massive rings (foreground) forming an opaque ‘saucer’ through which some light from the star ASASSN-24fw (background) shines. A red dwarf star (left) was also discovered...