A dwarf star in the Musca constellation has so much mass that it measurably distorts space and time. <br/>

In October 2010, a neutron star near the center of the Milky Way emitted hundreds of X-ray bursts triggered by thermonuclear explosions on the star's surface. NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, or RXTE, observed some 400 such events...

5 of the most unusual, amazing and interesting stars we've discovered in our universe. Red giants, supernovas, hybrid stars, orbiting binaries, large stars, old stars, small stars, we've discovered thousands of stars within our milky way...

Researchers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in a galaxy other than our own. The object sets a new record for the most luminous gamma-ray pulsar known.



The pulsar...

Scientists studying what amounts to a computer-simulated "pulsar in a box" are gaining a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy environment around spinning neutron stars, also called pulsars....

On June 11, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope celebrates a decade of using gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light in the cosmos, to study black holes, neutron stars, and other extreme cosmic objects and...

Astronomers have discovered a new type of “spider star” — violent pulsars that shred material from companion stars<br/>

Scientists using data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station have discovered X-ray surges accompanying radio bursts from the pulsar in the...

Astronomers at NASA and the ESA have discovered a star in the constellation Sagittarius that is the youngest known magnetar ever recorded.

A thermonuclear blast on a pulsar called J1808 resulted in the brightest burst of X-rays seen to date by NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope. The explosion, which occurred on a pulsar...

Matter in the hearts of neutron stars – dense remnants of exploded massive stars – takes the most extreme form we can measure. Now, thanks to data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer...

The famous Crab Nebula supernova remnant has erupted in an enormous flare five times more powerful than any previously seen from the object. The outburst was first detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on April 12...

In three years, NASA's Fermi has detected more than 100 gamma-ray pulsars, but something new has appeared. Among a type of pulsar with ages typically numbering a billion years or more, Fermi has found one that appears to have been...

An analysis of lunar rocks brought to the earth by US astronauts shows that there are traces of water on the moon. Samples brought back from the moon back in the 1970s reveal ancient droplets of volcanic glass that contain moisture....

Black widow spiders and their Australian cousins, known as redbacks, are notorious for an unsettling tendency to kill and devour their male partners. Astronomers have noted similar behavior among two rare breeds of binary...

Major improvements to methods used to process observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have yielded an expanded, higher-quality set of data that allows astronomers to produce the most detailed census of the sky yet...

Scientists have reached a new frontier in our understanding of pulsars, the dense, whirling remains of exploded stars, thanks to observations from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). Data...

Every 3.4 years, pulsar B1259--63 dives twice through the gas disk surrounding the massive blue star it orbits. With each pass, it produces gamma rays. During the most recent event, NASA's Fermi observed that the pulsar's gamma-ray...

Scientists analyzing the first data from the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission have found two stars that revolve around each other every 38 minutes. One of the stars in the system, called IGR...

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a signal at the center of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy that could indicate the presence of the mysterious stuff known as dark matter. The gamma-ray signal is similar to...

SEXTANT: Navigating by Cosmic Beacon



Imagine a technology that would allow space travelers to transmit gigabytes of data per second over interplanetary distances or to navigate to Mars and beyond using powerful beams of...

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits our planet every 95 minutes, building up increasingly deeper views of the universe with every circuit. Its wide-eyed Large Area Telescope (LAT) sweeps across the entire sky...

A new study of observations from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a faint but sprawling glow around a nearby pulsar. If visible to the human eye, this gamma-ray “halo” would appear larger...

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) payload, destined for the exterior of the space station, will study the physics of neutron stars, providing new insight into their nature and behavior. These stars are called...