Stars and galaxies formed back in the early days of the universe,  some 13 billion years ago, were not nearly as massive as originally thought. Population III stars were not only smaller…

Johann Galle fans won't like reading this but professor David Jamieson, Head of the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne, says Galileo beat him to the punch in the discovery of Neptune -…

A team of astrophysicists say they have solved a mystery that led some scientists to speculate that the distribution of certain gamma rays in our Milky Way galaxy was evidence for undetectable 'dark…

The Swan Nebula, also called the Omega Nebula because when seen through a small telescope the nebula has a shape that reminds some observers of the final letter of the Greek alphabet, omega, while…

Even among giants Messier 87, with two to three billion times the mass of our sun, stands out, completely dominating the Virgo cluster. A supermassive black hole exists in the center of Messier 87…

Two studies published in Science Express show the analysis of gamma-rays from two dozen pulsars, including 16 discovered by  NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi is the first spacecraft…

Astronomers have unveiled a new atlas of the inner regions of the Milky Way - that's our home galaxy, if you're from someplace else - and it's peppered with thousands of previously undiscovered dense…

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft's two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera,…

Astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory have discovered a black hole they labeled HLX-1 (Hyper-Luminous X-ray source 1), which lies towards the outskirts of the galaxy ESO 243-49,…

Why did our Milky Way galaxy survive while others failed?    Ill-defined, convenient catch-all dark matter gets the credit, according to a new paper.   Dark matter is thought to make…