Several dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way were likely stolen from the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Formation of stars and planets
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Interstellar Interloper Borisov Looks Like a Regular Comet, for Now
A first look at the chemical composition of the interstellar comet Borisov reveals ingredients that look a lot like those found in solar system comets. That’s not likely to last very long.
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Hunting for Planets Around Old, Anemic Stars
Can a star make planets with 10% of what the Sun had to work with? A synergy between two powerhouse survey telescopes is helping astronomers find that answer.
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Nearest Star System May Have a Second Planet
The exoplanet candidate, tentatively named Proxima c, would be a frozen snowball.
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Ultrahot Exoplanet Bleeds Heavy Metals into Space
The planet is also shaped like a football (the American kind).
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The “Yellowball” Catalog and the Citizen Science That Helped Define It
The online community of the Milky Way Project citizen scientists helped scientists identify compact star-forming regions now known as yellowballs.
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Passing Object May Have Kicked Up Dust from a Planetary Disk
The elongated tail of the SU Aurigae protoplanetary disk was likely formed as a result of a flyby from a substellar object.
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Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Searches for a New Home
Seismic activity during the eruption of Kīlauea damaged the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory beyond repair. Now officials are looking for a new site.
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One-Pixel Views of Earth Reveal Seasonal Changes
By averaging satellite images of the Earth down to a single pixel, researchers trace how the planet’s mean color varies over time, results that inform observations of distant exoplanets.
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New Exoplanet Telescope Detects Its First Two Planets
The two possible planets, each larger than Earth and too hot to be habitable, are the first of hundreds of Earth-sized exoplanets expected to be discovered by a recently launched telescope.