We had an exciting two hours back when the STEREO solar telescope satellites were first launched. The first summed image of several hours of first-light data showed a clear distortion in one of the…

An unusual spiral galaxy in the Coma galaxy cluster has been imaged using data obtained by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals fine details of the galaxy, NGC…

I don't drink coffee, and to some degree this has impeded my astronomy career. Coffee is the one social connection even the most isolated theorist engages in. Heck, our wall of 3x3 monitors showing…

COROT has found the smallest terrestrial planet ever detected outside the Solar System. The amazing planet is less than twice the size of Earth and orbits a Sun-like star. Its temperature is so high…

Some stars go ballistic, racing through interstellar space like bullets and tearing through clouds of gas.   Images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, taken by Raghvendra Sahai of NASA's Jet…

The Galapagos Islands are an archipelago situated some 1 000 km to the west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.  They were formed by volcanic activity around 10 million years ago. Out of the 19…

If it's daytime, why am I as an astronomer even up? But all the other astronomers work days, so dutifully, I'm at work by 9am each day. I code, manage, have meetings. I estimate that I only get 3…

Variations in the brightness of the Q0957+561 quasar, also known as the “twin quasar” due to its duplicated image on Earth, are intrinsic to the entity itself and not caused by the gravitational…

Astronomers have observed the intense heating of a distant planet as it swung close to its parent star, providing important clues to the atmospheric properties of the planet.  With that data,…

We get a spectacular new into the active galaxy Centaurus A - NGC 5128 -  as the jets and lobes emanating from the central black hole have been imaged at submillimeter wavelengths for the first…