At the heart of our galaxy lies a cosmic puzzle: although the Galactic Center is packed with star-making material, massive stars form there surprisingly slowly. Using NASA's retired SOFIA observatory, ...

A team of astrophysicists has unveiled how colossal stars thousands of times more massive than the Sun shaped the earliest star clusters and galaxies. These short-lived giants not only forged the ...

We may have seen the first hints of strange stars powered by dark matter. These so-called dark stars could explain several of the most mysterious objects in the universe, while also giving us hints ...

Stars and planets are inextricably linked. They form together and stars shape the fate of planets. Stars create the dusty protoplanetary disks that give birth to planets of all kinds. And when a star ...

Neutron stars harbor some of the most extreme environments in the universe: their densities soar to several times those of atomic nuclei, and they possess some of the strongest gravitational fields of ...

For decades, astronomers have wondered what the very first stars in the universe were like. These stars formed new chemical elements, which enriched the universe and allowed the next generations of ...

From Aldebaran to Vega, these gleaming beacons dazzle Northern Hemisphere viewers at various times of the year and provide a useful entry point into amateur astronomy Carlyn Kranking - Associate Web ...

Every night before bedtime, I take my dogs outside to do their doggy business, letting them run around in the yard on the eastern side of my house. I live under very dark skies in rural Virginia, and ...