Category Astronomy/Space

Astronomers have discovered a young star undergoing a rare growth spurt – giving a fascinating glimpse into the development of these distant stellar objects.

A team of international researchers, including experts from the University of Exeter’s Physics and Astronomy department, have observed a rare stellar outburst on a newfound star, called Gaia 17bpi. Gaia 17bpi belongs to a group of stars known as FU Ori’s, named after the original member of the group, FU Orionis found in the Orion constellation.

Typically these FU Ori stars, which are less than a few million years old, are hidden behind thick clouds of dust and are therefore hard to observe...

As the brilliant comet 46P/Wirtanen streaked across the sky, NASA telescopes caught it on camera from multiple angles...

A massive stellar flare on a baby star has been spotted by University of Warwick astronomers, shedding light on the origins of potentially habitable exoplanets. One of the largest ever seen on a star of its type, the huge explosion of energy and plasma is around 10,000 times bigger than the largest solar flare ever recorded from our own Sun.

The discovery is detailed in a paper for the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and reveals how this huge ‘tantrum’ could even perturb the material orbiting a star which would create the building blocks for future planets...

Researchers have discovered a new, exotic class of planets outside our solar system. These so-called super-Earths were formed at high temperatures close to their host star and contain high quantities of calcium, aluminium and their oxides – including sapphire and ruby.

21 light years away from us in the constellation Cassiopeia, a planet orbits its star with a year that is just three days long. Its name is HD219134 b. With a mass almost five times that of Earth it is a so-called “super-Earth...