November 20, 2009 A Movie of Motions Around a Young Star The famous Orion Nebula is the closest nursery of massive young stars to the earth, and is about 1300 light-years away. The nebula is part of a giant molecular cloud that hosts several clusters of hot young stars, with the brightest young star in the nebula, called Source I, shining with the luminosity of 100,000 suns.   Read More...

November 13, 2009 Mysterious X-rays from a Nearby Galaxy The nucleus of an active galaxy, an AGN, contains a massive black hole that is vigorously accreting material. In the process it typically ejects jets of particles and radiates brightly at many wavelengths, in particular at X-ray wavelengths.  Read More...

November 06, 2009 In a Galaxy Far, Far Away... Astronomers have just published the discovery of the farthest known object in the cosmos: a star that exploded when the universe was only 630 million years old -- only 4.6% of its current age.  Read More...