8+ hour, 4+ min ago  (207+ words) Astronomy Magazine Kuiper had discovered a body on one of the solar system's most eccentric orbits: Nereid's orbit takes it so far from its planet that it takes 360 Earth days to encircle it. Depending on its location in that orbit,…...

4+ mon, 2+ day ago  (368+ words) Starlight and stardust are not enough to drive the powerful winds of giant stars, transporting the building blocks of life through our galaxy. That's the conclusion of a new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The team, from Chalmers University of…...

6+ mon, 4+ day ago  (325+ words) After that, at least 100 million years passed before the first stars began to form, marking an end to the period that cosmologists call the Dark Ages. The exact timing of when the first stars formed is an unanswered question that…...

9+ mon, 5+ hour ago  (1315+ words) For the first time in human history, these musings are not idle fantasy: Scientists can search for signs of life in the atmospheres of alien planets by aiming powerful telescopes at them as they cross in front of and slip…...