Robert Lea

A bizarre object called "the Cow" is the flattest explosion ever detected, and the first example of a rare phenomenon called a fast blue optical transient (FBOT).

The 'Hawking radiation' emitted by black holes may be able to carry information after all, a new solution to Stephen Hawking's famous paradox suggests.

Scientists watched as two stars slowed in their orbits around black holes, concluding it was the result of "drag" generated by dark matter.

Scientists watched as a three-quasar system merged in a supercomputer simulation of the universe to birth a black hole 300 billion times as massive as the sun.

Astronomers have discovered a "runaway" black hole, potentially the first observational evidence that supermassive black holes can be ejected from their host galaxies.

A ring looping around the icy dwarf planet Quaoar is located much farther from its parent body than scientists thought was possible.

A metallic alloy of chromium, cobalt, and nickel is over 100 times tougher than graphene and gets even more resistant to damage at extremely low temperatures.

As many as 120 meteors could tumble through the sky each hour during the Geminids' peak on Dec. 14.

Astronomers stunned by 'brightest of all time' gamma-ray burst reckon it could be the most powerful space explosion since the Big Bang

Skywatchers will get a rare opportunity to see Jupiter in its full glory when its opposition happens at the same time as its closest approach to Earth.

Shock-compressing PET plastics can create tiny nanodiamonds with a range of technological applications.

Astronomers have directly measured the mass and velocity of an isolated black hole for the first time using gravitational lensing.

This newly-discovered particle could account for dark matter.

Using a superconducting X-ray laser, researchers at SLAC achieved a temperature 4 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero.

Massive gravitons may have formed a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, in abundances great enough to account for dark matter.

From worlds that rain iron and glass to diamond worlds and planets that have escaped the grip of their parent stars, here are 10 of the most extreme alien planets.