Astronomy

More than a billion miles beyond Pluto drifts a bizarre snowman-shaped world that was visited by the New Horizons probe at the beginning of the year. Originally nicknamed Ultima Thule, NASA has now officially named this Kuiper belt object “Arrokoth.”

Astronomers have discovered a star known as S5-HVS1, travelling at an incredible 6 million km/h (3.7 million mph). That not only makes it the fastest known star, but it’s fast enough to fling it right out of the galaxy.

Scientists generally agree that the universe is expanding, but how fast is up for debate. Now, astrophysicists have come up with a new figure for the Hubble Constant by studying how gamma rays interact with the background radiation of the universe.

On August 20, an x-ray instrument on the ISS caught a bright x-ray burst from a pulsar thousands of light-years away, which released as much energy in 20 seconds as the Sun does in 10 days. Now a NASA team has outlined what they believe caused it.

Black holes come in a few different sizes, from modest ones a few times heftier than the Sun, right up to supermassive monsters at the heart of galaxies. But now researchers claim to have discovered the smallest black hole ever detected.

Wormholes are a sci-fi staple – but could they be science fact? Surprisingly they fit into current physics models, although no evidence has ever been found. Now, researchers have outlined how we might go about looking for wormholes in our own galaxy.

If other star systems are anything like our own, they’ve probably had turbulent histories of exoplanets smashing into each other. And now, astronomers have found evidence of just such a cataclysm happening in the relatively recent past.

Astronomers have discovered a galaxy with strange clouds orbiting its supermassive black hole. Rather than all circling in the same direction, NGC 1068 has two rings that orbit in opposite directions – and that may answer a long-standing mystery.

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes three scientists for improving our understanding of the universe's history and Earth's place in the cosmos.

The Kamioka Gravitational-wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan will join LIGO in the US and Virgo in Italy to triangulate where any waves are coming from.

Nowadays, the Milky Way is a pretty quiet galaxy – but just a few million years ago its central black hole sent off huge flares of radiation.

An unexpected discovery is challenging our accepted understanding of how planets form. Astronomers have spotted a gigantic gas planet orbiting a small red dwarf star, which shouldn’t be possible according to current models.