The Milky Way’s Dramatic History of Violence Has Been Charted in a New Map

Over the course of the history of the Universe, the Milky Way has not been serenely sailing through intergalactic space. Quite the contrary, actually. Over the last 13.6 billion years or so, it has collided with and consumed multiple other galaxies.   Now, through painstaking work, astronomers led by Khyati Malhan of the Max Planck … Read more

Save up to £70 on Celestron telescopes in these stellar deals at Wex Photo Video

Skywatching can be an expensive hobby but that doesn’t mean you always have to fork out a fortune on some superb stargazing equipment. That’s right, there are some great deals on Celestron telescopes right now.  Wex Photo Video have up to £70 off on select Celestron Astromaster telescopes, perfect for those looking to save money … Read more

Incredibly rare stellar merger may have created strange stars

Two particularly strange stars may have formed in a lucky collision, according to new research. What makes these two stars unusual is the high levels of carbon and oxygen at the surface of their atmospheres. Those elements are left behind as a star burns its helium, but that process takes place in the star’s core … Read more

A New Planet Has Just Been Discovered Orbiting The Nearest Star to The Sun

What appears to be a teeny tiny alien world has just been found orbiting the Solar System’s closest stellar neighbor. The exoplanet candidate, named Proxima d, orbits a star named Proxima Centauri: a small, dim red dwarf star just 4.2 light-years from the Sun.   Amazingly, the exoplanet is just a quarter of the mass … Read more

Young stars illuminate ‘Chamaeleon’ stellar nursery in new Hubble image

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning new view of a stellar nursery illuminated by the bright blue light of young stars.  This vast stellar nursery, known as the Chamaeleon Cloud Complex, stretches 65 light-years wide, occupying most of the Chamaeleon constellation, which is visible from the Southern Hemisphere. Located 522 light-years away from … Read more

Purple space ‘lightning’ spews from stellar corpse, creating cosmic shock waves (photo, video)

A streak of purple “lightning” sprawls across the cosmos in a gorgeous new image from NASA. Light and energy twist and turn in an explosive relationship between a stellar corpse known as a white dwarf and a variable red giant star called R Aquarii (R Aqr) orbiting each other out in space. NASA’s Chandra X-ray … Read more

The Flame Nebula Blazes Like a Cosmic Bonfire in This Stunning New Image

A new image of the Flame Nebula shows the interstellar cloud as we’ve never seen it before. A team of astronomers using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope has captured the star-forming region in radio wavelengths, revealing details that we had never seen before.   The Flame Nebula, which is close to the famous Horsehead … Read more

Powerful superflares discovered erupting from superdense stellar corpse

A visualization of a superflare on the recurrent nova v2487 Oph. (Image credit: LSU Prof. Robert Hynes, with his BinSim program) A rare type of white dwarf star has been erupting in the most extreme superflares of its kind ever seen, researchers find in a new study. The star in question, known as V2487 Oph, … Read more

Stellar Video Shows Comet Leonard as It Zips by Earth For The 1st Time in 80,000 Years

Since early this year, skywatchers on Earth have been tracking Comet Leonard, a kilometer-wide dirty snowball made of ice, rock, and dust. Now, as it heads towards a close encounter with the Sun on 3 January 2022, several spacecraft – with the distinct advantage of having an unobstructed front-row seat to the action – have … Read more