Natarajan found that ultra-massive black holes, which lurk in the centers of huge galaxy clusters like the one above, seem to have an upper mass limit of 10 billion times that of the Sun. (Credit:…

Burst Alert! March 19th was an exciting day for NASA. We know “why” it was special, but we don’t know “why why” it was special. They finally explain the why why today, and you can read all about it…

What do you call a supernova that is not as powerful and doesn't destroy the star? A babynova? Subnova? We'll need to think of something, according to Berkeley astronomer Nathan Smith, because that…

GRB 080319B was so intense that, despite happening halfway across the Universe, it could have been seen briefly with the unaided eye. In a Nature paper, Judith Racusin of Penn State University, and…

Astronomers have been able to study planet-forming discs around young Sun-like stars in unsurpassed detail, clearly revealing the motion and distribution of the gas in the inner parts of the disc.…

When scientific terms become part of the cultural fabric they often lose their meaning. Biology has had its share of modern misunderstandings with 'evolution' becoming colloquial rather than…

A strange mix of oxygen found in a stony meteorite that exploded February 8, 1969 over Pueblito de Allende, Mexico has puzzled scientists ever since. Small flecks of minerals lodged in the stone and…

Astronomers have taken the closest look ever at the giant black hole in the center of the Milky Way. By combining telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and California, they detected structure at a tiny…

ESO's Wide Field Imager has captured the intricate swirls of the spiral galaxy Messier 83, a smaller look-alike of our own Milky Way. Shining with the light of billions of stars and the ruby red glow…

Another piece of the jigsaw in understanding how neutron stars work has been put in place following the discovery by scientists of the origin of the high energy emission from rotation-powered pulsars…