Saturn's distinctive rings were observed in unprecedented detail by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and scientists have now used those observations to probe the interior of the giant planet and obtain the first precise determination of its rotation rate. The length of a day on Saturn, according to their calculations, is 10 hours 33 minutes and 38 seconds.

In its last days, the Cassini spacecraft looped between Saturn and its rings so that Earth-based radio telescopes could track the gravitational tug of each. Scientists have now used these measurements to determine the mass of the rings and estimate its age, which is young: 10-100 million years. This supports the hypothesis that the rings are rubble from a comet or Kuiper Belt object captured late in Saturn's history.

A team of scientists has determined the number of asteroid impacts on the Moon and Earth increased by two to three times starting around 290 million years ago. Previous theories held that there were fewer craters on both objects dating back to before that time because they had disappeared due to erosion. The new findings claim that there were simply fewer asteroid impacts during that earlier period.

An international team of researchers found evidence for the much theorized 'hot cocoon'.

A team of scientists has, for the first time, used a single, cohesive computer model to simulate the entire life cycle of a solar flare: from the buildup of energy thousands of kilometers below the solar surface, to the emergence of tangled magnetic field lines, to the explosive release of energy in a brilliant flash.

An image from the international Cassini spacecraft provides evidence of rainfall on the north pole of Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons. The rainfall would be the first indication of the start of a summer season in the moon's northern hemisphere.

Experimental proof of a decades-old prediction opens a pathway to recreate possible conditions of the early universe here on earth.

A new study finds that some supermassive black holes are 'triggered' to grow, suddenly devouring a large amount of gas in their surroundings.

Astronomers have found the first confirmed example of a double star system that has flipped its surrounding disc to a position that leaps over the orbital plane of those stars.

During the formation of a black hole a bright burst of very energetic light in the form of gamma-rays is produced, these events are called gamma-ray bursts. Researchers have built the POLAR instrument to analyze gamma-ray bursts. The first results of POLAR reveal that the high energy photons coming from gamma-ray bursts are neither completely chaotic, nor completely organized, but a mixture of the two.

New findings test the limits of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), the mysterious liquid thought to have existed in the micro-seconds after the Big Bang.

After combining several imaging sources, including hard X-rays and radiowaves, a team now speculates that the telescopes captured the exact moment a star collapsed to form a compact object, such as a black hole or neutron star. The stellar debris, approaching and swirling around the object's event horizon, caused The Cow's remarkably bright glow.

Astronomers announced that they have identified the type of companion star that made its partner in a binary system, a carbon-oxygen white dwarf star, explode. Through repeated observations of SN 2015cp, a supernova 545 million light years away, the team detected hydrogen-rich debris that the companion star had shed prior to the explosion.

Astronomers have identified a giant streak structure among the clouds covering planet Venus based on observation from the spacecraft Akatsuki. The team also revealed the origins of this structure using large-scale climate simulations.

Observations from Gemini Observatory identify a key fingerprint of an extremely distant quasar, allowing astronomers to sample light emitted from the dawn of time. Astronomers happened upon this deep glimpse into space and time thanks to a foreground galaxy acting as a gravitational lens, which magnified the ancient light. The Gemini observations provide critical pieces of the puzzle in confirming this object as the brightest appearing quasar so early in the history of the universe.

New findings are the first demonstration of a tidal disruption flare being used to estimate a black hole's spin.

Astronauts who spend several months on the International Space Station have significant reductions in the size and density of paraspinal muscles of the trunk after returning to Earth, reports a new study.

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, fewer galaxies were born than expected -- and that could create new questions for galaxy physics, according to a new study.

Scientists have found the second repeating fast radio burst (FRB) ever recorded. The discovery of the extragalactic signal is among the first, eagerly awaited results from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). The repeating FRB was one of a total of 13 bursts detected over a period of just three weeks during the summer of 2018, while CHIME was in its pre-commissioning phase.

On March 11, an instrument aboard the International Space Station detected an enormous explosion of X-ray light that grew to be six times as bright as the Crab Nebula, nearly 10,000 light years away from Earth. Scientists determined the source was a black hole caught in the midst of an outburst -- an extreme phase in which a black hole can spew brilliant bursts of X-ray energy as it devours an avalanche of gas and dust from a nearby star.

Astrophysicists have found the first ever evidence of gigantic remains being formed from repeated explosions on the surface of a dead star in the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years from Earth. The remains or 'super-remnant' measures almost 400 light years across. The super-remnant -- larger than almost all known remnants of supernova explosions -- is consistent with being built up by frequent nova eruptions over millions of years.

A team of astronomers has charted the environment surrounding a relatively small, 'stellar mass' black hole that is 10 times the mass of the sun. The observations provide the clearest picture to date of how these small black holes consume matter and emit energy.

The first direct evidence of white dwarf stars solidifying into crystals has been discovered by astronomers, and our skies are filled with them.

Astronomers describe their discovery that stellar wind from a newborn star in the Orion Nebula is preventing more stars from forming nearby.

Researchers have developed a new technique for finding galaxy mergers -- events in which two galaxies join together in sometimes-dramatic bursts of light.