Distant giant planets form differently than 'failed stars'

A team of astronomers led by Brendan Bowler of The University of Texas at Austin has probed the formation process of giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs, a class of objects that are more massive than giant planets, but not ...

NASA scientists confirm water vapor on Europa

Forty years ago, a Voyager spacecraft snapped the first closeup images of Europa, one of Jupiter's 79 moons. These revealed brownish cracks slicing the moon's icy surface, which give Europa the look of a veiny eyeball. Missions ...

Mid-mass black hole hurls star across the Milky Way

An international team of astronomers has pinpointed the origin of a runaway high-velocity star named PG 1610+062 and determined that it was likely ejected from its birth cluster with the help of a mid-mass black hole (MMBH).

Cool halo gas caught spinning like galactic disks

A group of astronomers led by Crystal Martin and Stephanie Ho of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has discovered a dizzying cosmic choreography among typical star-forming galaxies; their cool halo gas appears ...

Unusual galaxies defy dark matter theory

After drawing both praise and skepticism, the team of astronomers who discovered NGC 1052-DF2 – the very first known galaxy to contain little to no dark matter – are back with stronger evidence about its bizarre nature.

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