Astronomers have captured a first-of-its-kind image of a massive dying star. Just 26 hours after the supernova SN 2024ggi was first detected in April 2024, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) pointed its Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile at the dramatic astronomical event. Supernovas are the explosive deaths of stars, and ESO’s VLT managed to […]
Hungry Rogue Planet Is Gobbling Gas and Dust at 6 Billion Tons per Second
Rogue planets live by their own rules, freely floating through the cosmos without being bound to a star. With no stellar supervision, those isolated planetary bodies can often behave in unusual ways. Astronomers discovered a rogue planet experiencing a rather unusual growth spurt, bingeing on its surrounding gas and dust at an unprecedented rate. The […]
First-Ever Documented Supersonic Winds Are Ripping Through This Exoplanet
The farthest planet from the Sun, Neptune, is the windiest place in the solar system, with winds that whip through at speeds reaching more than 0.3 miles per second (0.5 kilometers per second). That’s a relatively pleasant wind speed compared to a giant, puffy planet located around 500 lightyears away from Earth. Supersonic winds on […]