Selections from 2015: Close Encounter of Our Solar System with Another Star
A low-mass binary star system passed by our solar system only 70,000 years ago, clipping the outer edge of the Oort cloud as it passed.
A low-mass binary star system passed by our solar system only 70,000 years ago, clipping the outer edge of the Oort cloud as it passed.
In July, a team reported the discovery of Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable zone of star that is similar to our Sun.
Two different color classes of type Ia supernovae have been discovered. This discovery may mean that supernovae-based measurements of distances are inaccurate.
Kepler-444 is a system of five sub-Earth-sized planets transiting a Sun-like star. This ancient system has been measured to be 11 billion years old.
The binary star system VFTS 352 is an “overcontact binary” — the two stars orbit each other so closely that they actually touch!
EGSY8p7 has a spectroscopic redshift of z=8.68, making it the most-distant known object in the universe.
A survey of the Coma galaxy cluster unexpectedly revealed 47 diffuse, uncataloged galaxies roughly the size of the Milky Way.
What can spiral structures in protoplanetary disks tell us about the planets that formed them?
New observations of a nearby dwarf galaxy may help to us understand how galaxies lose their metals.
A recent study has used the reddening of several stars in nearby Andromeda to learn about the properties of the dust within this galaxy.
A recent study has determined how host stars can help their planets to lose initial, enormous gaseous envelopes and become more Earth-like.
Gravitational microlensing of quasar Q2237+0305 has provided us with a close look at the structure within the innermost region surrounding its central black hole.