Largest yellow hypergiant star spotted

ESO's Very Large Telescope has revealed the largest yellow star—and one of the 10 largest stars found so far. This hypergiant has been found to measure more than 1,300 times the diameter of the Sun, and to be part of a ...

Double engine for a nebula

(PhysOrg.com) -- The new image, showing a very rich field of stars towards the Carina arm of the Milky Way, is centred on the star HD 87643, a member of the exotic class of B[e] stars [1]. It is part of a set of observations ...

Powerful New Technique to Measure Asteroids' Sizes and Shapes

A team of French and Italian astronomers have devised a new method for measuring the size and shape of asteroids that are too small or too far away for traditional techniques, increasing the number of asteroids that can be ...

Black Holes Lead Galaxy Growth

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- the question of which formed first in the early Universe -- galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.

Sharpest view ever of dusty disc around aging star

As they approach the ends of their lives many stars develop stable discs of gas and dust around them. This material was ejected by stellar winds, whilst the star was passing through the red giant stage of its evolution. These ...

Dusty surprise around giant black hole

(Phys.org) —ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy. Rather than finding all of the dust in a doughnut-shaped ...

Astronomers gear up to discover Earth-like planets

If one looks only for the shiniest pennies in the fountain, chances are one misses most of the coins because they shimmer less brightly. This, in a nutshell, is the conundrum astronomers face when searching for Earth-like ...

Rare galaxy found furiously burning fuel for stars

Astronomers have found a galaxy turning gas into stars with almost 100 percent efficiency, a rare phase of galaxy evolution that is the most extreme yet observed. The findings come from the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer ...

page 1 from 2