Total annihilation for supermassive stars

A renegade star exploding in a distant galaxy has forced astronomers to set aside decades of research and focus on a new breed of supernova that can utterly annihilate its parent star—leaving no remnant behind. The signature ...

What do Uranus's cloud tops have in common with rotten eggs?

Hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rotten eggs their distinctive odor, permeates the upper atmosphere of the planet Uranus - as has been long debated, but never definitively proven. Based on sensitive spectroscopic observations ...

The most ancient spiral galaxy confirmed

The most ancient spiral galaxy discovered to date is revealing its secrets to a team of astronomers at Swinburne University of Technology and The Australian National University (ANU), part of the Australian Research Council ...

Hubble image: The sleeping giant

The placid appearance of NGC 4889 can fool the unsuspecting observer. But the elliptical galaxy, pictured in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, harbours a dark secret. At its heart lurks one of the most ...

Sakurai's Object: Stellar evolution in real time

(Phys.org) —Stellar lifetimes are measured in billions of years, so changes in their appearance rarely take place on a human timescale. Thus an opportunity to observe a star passing from one stage of life to another on ...

'All-clear' asteroid will miss Earth in 2040

(Phys.org)—Using the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have confirmed that the chance of asteroid 2011 AG5 impacting Earth in ...

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