In the violent heart of our Milky Way galaxy lies a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to four million suns. But although the gravitational maw gobbles up anything that gets too close, it can also set up conditions that allow for the birth of new stars just a few light years away, according to a new study. Lead researcher Elizabeth Humphreys says the results, which uncovered what appear to be two young stars as close as seven light-years from the galactic center, were surprising, as that is “one of the last places … you would expect to find stars forming” [Scientific American].
Gas clouds that approach a black hole are usually ripped apart by the intense gravitational forces, but the new finding suggests that the molecular gas at the center of the Milky Way from which the stars form is denser than previously thought. The higher density gas makes it easier for the self-gravity of the condensing cloud to overcome the strong pull of the black hole and to collapse to form new stars [SPACE.com].

Dead
We residents of the
A
For the first time, carbon dioxide has been detected in the atmosphere of an
In news that has thrown astronomers and space enthusiasts into a tizzy of excitement, two separate research teams announced today that they have taken the first pictures of
The
After several weeks of remote-control repair work, the
The nearest planetary system to our own has two
Just yesterday, the
The 
Tomorrow
A breakdown aboard the orbiting
Astronomers think they have taken the first picture ever of a planet orbiting a 