A new study provides a possible explanation for the mysterious flares. The suggestion is that there is a cloud around Sgr A* containing hundreds of trillions of asteroids and comets, which have been stripped from their parent stars. [...more]
The fastest wind ever discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole has been observed by a team of astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. [...more]
Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It’s smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth. [...more]
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a cluster of young, blue stars encircling the first intermediate-mass black hole ever discovered. The presence of the star cluster suggests that the black hole was once at the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy. [...more]
The image shows one of the most active and turbulent regions of star birth in our galaxy, a region called Cygnus X. [...more]
Astronomers using NASA's Kepler mission have detected two Earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star. This discovery marks a milestone in the hunt for alien worlds, since it brings scientists one step closer to their ultimate goal of finding a twin Earth. [...more]
Astronomers are confident the Cygnus X-1 system contains a black hole, and with these latest studies they have remarkably precise values of its mass, spin, and distance from Earth. [...more]
In a new paper, Avi Loeb, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Edwin Turner, Princeton University, suggest a new technique for finding aliens: look for their city lights. [...more]
Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have found that fledgling catbirds living in the suburbs are extremely vulnerable. Almost 80 percent are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. Nearly half of the deaths are connected to domestic cats. The team studied catbird nests in 3 suburban neighborhoods in Maryland: Spring Park, Opal Daniels Park, and Bethesda. Learn more about this 2011 study by clicking here. (Catbird photo by Gerhard Hofmann)
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