When the most massive stars reach the ends of their lives, they blow up in spectacular supernova explosions, which seed the universe with heavy elements such as carbon and iron. Another type of explosion—the kilonova—occurs when a pair of dense dead stars, called neutron stars, smash together, forging even heavier elements such as gold and […]

SpaceX managed to find a lull in the winds early Monday, but a second SpaceX launch as well as one from United Launch Alliance opted to wait at least a day before trying to add to the Space Coast’s rocket mission total.

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An international team of astronomers has uncovered the most unmistakable evidence yet that the powerful jets launched by newborn stars reliably record a star’s most violent growth episodes, confirming a long-standing model of how these jets propagate through their surroundings.

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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a glittering blue dwarf galaxy called Markarian 178 (Mrk 178). The galaxy, which is substantially smaller than our own Milky Way, lies 13 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear).

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Carl Sagan famously said that “We’re all made of star stuff.” But he didn’t elaborate on how that actually happened. Yes, many of the molecules in our bodies could only have been created in massive supernovae explosions—hence the saying—and scientists have long thought they had the mechanism for how settled: the isotopes created in the […]