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KRB4DP This is an artist's impression of the view from the vicinity of a hypothetical terrestrial planet and moon orbiting the red dwarf star AU Microscopii. The relatively newborn 12 million year-old star is surrounded by a very dusty disk of debris from the collision of comets, asteroids, and planetissimals swirling around the young star. Though no planets have been discovered around the star, the disk is strong circumstantial evidence for planets. Not only is it dusty, but also it is warped, possibly by the pull of one or more planets. In this view the glow of starlight reflecting off the disk cre

Mysterious cold blobs may be hiding inside a distant star

10 June 2022

A small star called AU Microscopii seems to contain strange pockets of hydrogen that are more than 1500°C cooler than the rest of the star, and astronomers aren’t sure why

This artist???s impression shows a two-star system where micronovae may occur. The blue disc swirling around the bright white dwarf in the centre of the image is made up of material, mostly hydrogen, stolen from its companion star. Towards the centre of the disc, the white dwarf uses its strong magnetic fields to funnel the hydrogen towards its poles. As the material falls on the hot surface of the star, it triggers a micronova explosion, contained by the magnetic fields at one of the white dwarf???s poles.

Small explosions called micronovae discovered on dead stars

20 April 2022

Micronovae are about 1 million times less bright than a classical nova and last just half a day, but they release as much energy as the sun would in a day

Astronomers still can't agree on what counts as a planet

25 March 2022

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union came up with a new way to classify planets that famously saw Pluto downgraded. Now a new row has started as astronomers try to define exoplanets

Tiny exoplanet Proxima d is third spotted in nearest star system to us

10 February 2022

A star system just 4.2 light years away called Proxima Centauri is already known to contain two exoplanets, and now astronomers have spotted a third

Stars imaged by the DECam Plane Survey TIC 400799224 is identified in the crosshairs.

Weird shape-shifting clouds of dust seem to be orbiting a distant star

14 October 2021

The light from a distant star appears to be orbited by something that is continually changing shape and size, possibly clouds of dust from repeated collisions

Jupiter-like planet survived the death of its star without harm

13 October 2021

Astronomers have spotted a Jupiter-like planet in its original orbit around a white dwarf for the first time

An enormous ‘mega comet’ is flying into our solar system

21 June 2021

Astronomers have found a large object entering our solar system – it could be an unusually large comet or even a minor planet, and it will get nearly as close to the sun as Saturn by 2031

Pluto is covered in huge red patches and we don't know what they are

21 June 2021

Huge swathes of Pluto’s surface are covered in a mysterious red material, and planetary scientists’ best guess for what it could be doesn’t seem to match up to data from the New Horizons probe

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter photographed by the Perseverance rover on April 5

NASA is about to fly a helicopter on another planet for the first time

8 April 2021

The Ingenuity helicopter, which hitched a ride to Mars aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, is getting ready to perform its first test flight on 12 April