Space Station Threshold

Astronomers are confused. As if gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) weren't mysterious enough, there's something else to add to the bag of confusion. GRB events are missing from the furthermost reaches of the Universe. Right around the time when there should be a lot of GRBs, during the "star forming epoch" (when stars were just beginning ...

We've all wondered at some point or another what mysteries our Solar System holds. After all, the eight planets (plus Pluto and all those other dwarf planets) orbit within a very small volume of the heliosphere (the volume of space dominated by the influence of the Sun), what's going on in the rest of the [...]

So neutron stars may not be the densest exotic objects in the cosmos after all. Recent observations of ultra-luminous supernovae suggest that these explosions may create an even more exotic remnant. Neutron stars can form after a star ends its life; measuring only 16 km across, these small but massive objects (one and a half [...]

Explosions are almost always cool, and supernovae are some of the most spectacular and violent explosions in the Universe. In 2006, the supernova SN 2006gy wowed scientists with a light show that was 10 times as luminous as the average supernova, challenging the traditional model of exactly how an exploding star creates a supernova. Astronomers ...