Nearly 4.5 million years ago, two enormous, blazing stars swung close to the solar system. They did not touch the sun, but they came close enough to leave a permanent mark on the thin mist of gas that ...

Astronomers have for the first time seen the birth of a magnetar—a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star—and confirmed that it's the power source behind some of the brightest exploding stars in the ...

What can imaging supernovae (plural for supernova) explosions teach astronomers about their behavior and physical characteristics? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to ...

Researchers say the "powerful engine" behind superluminous exploding stars had been hidden for years — until a "chirp" from the cosmos helped confirm their link.

Astrophysicists have achieved an eye-opening leap in understanding stellar death, capturing unprecedented, detailed images of two exploding stars that demonstrate these blasts are far more complicated ...

From a mountaintop in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is preparing to capture the most detailed, decade-long movie of the night sky ever attempted. With the world’s largest digital camera, the ...

Artist’s conception of a magnetar surrounded by an accretion disk that is wobbling, or precessing, because of the effects of general relativity. Some models of magnetars suggest that high-speed jets ...

Astronomers have created a detailed forecast of where they expect to observe future stellar explosions in a nearby galaxy, opening a new window into how exploding stars shape the cosmos. Focusing on ...

Some of the most spectacular images ever captured by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal the violent remains of exploding stars. These supernova remnants include glowing clouds of gas, rapidly expanding ...