Once every 10,000 years or so, the center of a galaxy lights up as its supermassive black hole rips apart a passing star. This “tidal disruption event” happens in a literal flash, as the central black ...

Energy Star, the Environmental Protection Agency program identifiable by the small blue logo with a star on many American appliances, may be terminated. The program began in 1992 as a way for ...

I love simple questions that wind up having complicated—or at least not straightforward—answers. Astronomers twist themselves into knots, for example, trying to define what a planet is, even though it ...

The Star of Bethlehem may have been a planetary conjunction. A comet or supernova are less likely explanations. Multiple planetary alignments around 7-3 BC could have been interpreted as significant.

Some massive stars may go out with a fizzle, not a bang. A star that winked out of view could be a “failed supernova,” a stellar explosion that petered out instead of fully detonating, a new study ...