In his search for giant stars hosting large worlds, Samuel Grunblatt, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University, came across a strangely puffy planet that’s smaller, hotter, and older than it’s supposed to be. “We didn’t expect to find any planet that looks like this,” he told Gizmodo.
Do we live in an unusual star system? Astronomers have been trying to figure out if the Solar System is unique compared to other stars and their orbiting planets, and they just took a major step towards answering the longstanding cosmic mystery.
Robotic telescopes of various shapes and sizes are hitting the market these days, each promising clear views of the cosmos and ease of use—attributes not often found paired together in a single telescope. Amateur and backyard astronomers are now fully embracing this ongoing, auto-GOTO revolution, but not every…
The massive galaxy that houses our star system, along with hundreds of billions of other stars, appears as a shimmery splotch stretching across our night skies on clear, moonless nights. For an ancient people who were rather obsessed with the cosmos, looking up at the Milky Way may have symbolized a goddess that hangs…
WASP-76b is a strange world. Located several hundred light-years away, the Jupiter-like planet is tidally locked to its star, has scorching temperatures, and rains molten iron. Recent observations of the hot gas giant reveal it may even have a rainbow-like optical phenomenon that’s only been observed on Earth and…
A new NASA experiment will take to the skies on a balloon, scanning the space between the stars of our galaxy and listening for cosmic ingredients to understand how the Milky Way evolved over time.
We’ve been capturing space-based images of Earth for nearly three-quarters of a century, but these eight views of Earth are each profound in their own way.
A team of astronomers have detected over 500 planet-like objects in the inner Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster that they believe could shake up the very definition of a planet.
In the beginning, galaxies were lacking in chemical and metal abundances, according to a team of astronomers that recently used a telescope to study the ancient universe.
The International Gemini Observatory, a key player in global astronomical research, has temporarily halted astronomical operations following a cyberattack. The culprits and their motives remain unknown.
