The riddle of the hypergiants

Astronomers are now regularly detecting planets thousands of light years from Earth – but have we missed one in our own Solar System?

An artist’s impression of Cha 1107-7626 accreting material ...

As an astronomer, I collect stars. There are several hundred billion of them in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, so it’s important to find a way to categorise them. While others might rank their stars by co

How many planets are there in the Solar System? It sounds like an easy question, but it’s more complex than you might think – and actually it’s one we still can’t answer. With scientists finding evide

For the first time, a study has revealed Earth-sized planets orbiting each of the stars in a binary system. An international team found the worlds around a stellar pair called TOI-2267: two small, coo

Planetary nebula NGC 6537 is nicknamed the Red Spider Nebula for its narrow ‘body’ and spindly ‘legs’ that stretch into the cosmos. But in this new view from the James Webb Space Telescope, what leaps