Ker Than

The two motley parts of a near-Earth asteroid dance around each other like a miniature Earth and Moon, a new study finds.

The poet Robert Frost wondered if Earth would wind up a world of fire or ice; astronomers have discovered that a distant planet is both.

The closest planet outside our solar system orbits a young Sun-like star only 10.5 light years away—so close that telescopes might soon be able to snap pictures of it, new observations confirm.

Satellite observations have confirmed how a certain type of star explosion occurs and revealed a previously unknown stage of radiation release during the stellar burst.

A new census compiled by astronomers contains the location of every nearby galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center.

A recently spied planet orbits so close to its star that a new year comes every 10 hours.

A Russian rocket launched the world's fourth space tourist and two astronauts into orbit early Monday morning on a two-day trip bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

A newly discovered planet has one quarter the density of water and would float if placed in a bathtub large enough to hold it.

A planet slightly larger than Jupiter was recently spotted as it passed in front of a Sun-like star located 500-light-years away.

Pluto has been given a new name that reflects its new status as a dwarf planet.

A study of nearby galaxy clusters has failed to detect distortions in ancient microwave radiation that many scientists have linked to the creation of our universe.

The shadow cast by a moon as it floated through space above the blue-green cloud tops of Uranus was recently captured for the first time by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers have detected a GRB-supernova hybrid that could shed light on the mechanism behind both.

Automated telescopes and a new high speed wireless network are helping astronomers study the cosmos without having to chain themselves to observatory telescopes all night.

A conveyor-belt like process transports heavy elements from the surface of stars into their interiors where they are destroyed, new observations suggest.

The parent star of a distant planet discovered through gravitational microlensing has been identified for the first time.

A two-year survey of interstellar dust clouds has turned up eight organic molecules in both a stellar nursery and in a cold, starless region of space.

A newly discovered pair of planet-sized objects floating far away from any star has astronomers puzzling over how such a bizarre system could have formed.