ESO

The first comet known to visit our Sun after being born around an alien star may be the most pristine comet ever discovered, new research has found.

Astronomers have discovered the aftermath of a cosmic hit-and-run in our own neighborhood. While studying the closest star cluster to the Sun, ESA scientists realized it may have been disrupted by a huge lump of invisible mass, possibly dark matter.

Astronomers have discovered a nearby system of exoplanets with unusually orderly orbits but disordered densities. Five of the six planets circle the star in a rare rhythmic dance called a resonance chain, while their densities are weirdly shuffled.

Astronomers have witnessed a rare celestial light show – a star being stretched into “spaghetti” by a black hole. More than 200 million light-years from Earth, the dying star was ripped to shreds by immense gravitational forces over six months.

The way things are in our solar system aren't always how they work elsewhere in the universe. Now, astronomers have observed a triple star system that’s warping and splitting its planetary disc into strange new shapes and multiple rings.

Astronomers have discovered the intact, exposed core of a gas giant locked in a close orbit around a Sun-like star. The discovery will give astronomers a rare opportunity to probe the heart of an ancient alien world.

A star that shined with 2.5 million times the light of our Sun has disappeared from the night sky. It is possible that the star collapsed into a black hole without first triggering a supernova – a rare event, even in the context of dying stars.

A team of international researchers has confirmed the existence of an Earth-like exoplanet only 4.2 light-years from the Sun. The ESPRESSO spectrograph found Proxima b has a mass of 1.17 Earths and orbits in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri.

An international team of astronomers has found what may be the first images of a planet being born. Based on observations by ESO’s VLT, images of AB Aurigae show a "twist" in the surrounding cloud that indicates the presence of a planet being formed.

The closest black hole to our solar system has been discovered a mere 1,000 light-years from Earth, and orbits with two companion stars that are visible to the naked eye without the aid of a telescope or binoculars.

Almost 30 years of observations has revealed that a star in the center of the galaxy orbits the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* in a rosette, or spirograph shape. The find once again confirms a prediction made by Einstein’s General Relativity.

Astronomers may have found a world where it rains iron. The exoplanet is exposed to thousands of times the radiation that the Earth receives from the Sun, rendering the surface hot enough to vaporize metals that later fall as rain.