Using a technique that measures how much gravity bends light, astronomers say they have spotted early stars in galaxies more than 13 billion light-years away.
Images made by taking very deep exposures, then subtracting away all known light sources appear to show the light from the very first stars in the universe. Still up for debate but moving through the peer review system
VY Canis Majoris is a red hyper-giant. This is the largest known star. If it were possible for a human to walk on the surface of Canis Majoris, at 3 miles an hour for 8 hours a day, it would take him or her 162,000 years to walk the entire circumference (compared with 2 years 11 months to complete the same task on the Earth).
Derelict rocket stages that propelled four spacecraft toward the edges of our solar system and beyond are likely carrying Earthly bacteria out into the galaxy. “The upper stages were not required to be sterilized,” said John Rummel, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA. There was just one big directive:
A poster showing the distance from the center of the Earth to the stars and planets.
Astronomers might have seen the very first stars in the universe. If so, these are incredible stars, some 1,000 times as massive as the Sun.
Scientists have discovered two new Jupiter-sized planets around stars in the constellations of Andromeda and Delphinus. They are among the hottest planets yet discovered.