NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has produced the sharpest image ever taken of the Egg Nebula, a structure roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth where a dying star is shedding its outer layers in dramatic ...

NASA, Donald Walter/South Carolina State University/Paul Scowen/ Brian Moore/Arizona State University A glimpse up at the night sky will reveal a seemingly endless landscape of twinkling stars, but ...

Astronomers have employed the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to investigate a peculiar pulsar wind nebula known as ...

For the first time, astronomers have discovered dry ice (carbon dioxide ice) in a planetary nebula, shedding new light on the complex chemistry occurring in the universe’s most dynamic environments.

The death of a star is usually thought to be a violent and hostile ...

Many good things come in threes: the Three Musketeers, the Three Tenors, movie and book trilogies, and more. There seems to be something symmetrical, beautiful, and satisfying when using the power of ...

When a star runs out of fuel, it sheds its outer layers of gas and, if it doesn't explode in a supernova, forms a glowing shell of ionized gas that expands into space. Shells like these are known as ...

The image features one of the most visually intricate remnants of a dying star: the Cat’s Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543.

Astroimaging involves a profound irony. While the goal of photography is to capture light, the majority of what astrophotographers capture in their images is utter darkness. Oh sure, the intended ...

An international team of astronomers has employed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe a complex planetary nebula known as NGC 6302. The observations, detailed in a paper published Feb. 25 ...

In their dying throes, some stars leave behind beautiful planetary nebulae — disk, spiral or even butterfly-shaped clouds of dust and gas (SN: 5/17/18). How these fantastically shaped clouds arise ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. Each spring it becomes possible—for only a few short weeks, ...