How did the Butterfly Nebula get its wings? It's complicated

Planetary nebulae form when red giant stars expel their outermost layers as they run out of helium fuel—becoming hot, dense white dwarf stars that are roughly the size of Earth. The material that was shed, enriched in carbon, ...

James Webb Space Telescope confirms its first exoplanet

Researchers have confirmed the presence of an exoplanet, a planet that orbits another star, using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope for the first time. Formally classified as LHS 475 b, the planet is almost exactly ...

Searching for life on alien worlds

Twenty-seven years ago, at the University of Geneva, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz—now a professor at ETH—discovered the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star. Much has happened since that initial discovery: ...

Astronomers find that two exoplanets may be mostly water

A team led by UdeM astronomers has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are "water worlds," planets where water makes up a large fraction of the volume. These worlds, located in a planetary system ...

Hubble detects ghostly glow surrounding our solar system

Imagine walking into a room at night, turning out all the lights and closing the shades. Yet an eerie glow comes from the walls, ceiling, and floor. The faint light is barely enough to see your hands before your face, but ...

'Black widow' PSR J1544+4937 investigated in detail

Indian astronomers have performed long-term radio observations of a "black widow" millisecond pulsar known as PSR J1544+4937. Results of the observational campaign, published November 25 on the arXiv pre-print server, shed ...

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