Nearly 4.5 million years ago, two enormous, blazing stars swung close to the solar system. They did not touch the sun, but they came close enough to leave a permanent mark on the thin mist of gas that ...

In recent years, whenever astronomers have gazed into the night sky, they’ve noticed something peculiar: Some of its massive stars—the true titans of the cosmos—appear to be missing. The largest of ...

Astronomers have for the first time seen the birth of a magnetar—a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star—and confirmed that it's the power source behind some of the brightest exploding stars in the ...