Very Large Telescope

Astronomers find planetary maternity ward, 520 light-years from Earth and watch as a planet is born

It takes several million years for a planet to reach its final stage and it is forming around a star about 2.4 times the mass of the sun

ESO's HARPS confirms nearby super-Earth orbiting the fastest moving star in our sky

The newly-discovered exoplanet is orbits the fastest moving star in our night sky: Researchers.

Hyperion, the largest galaxy supercluster recorded of the early cosmos unvieled

A million billion times the sun's mass, Hyperion looks to Earth as it did billions of years ago.

NASA discovers rare neutron star outside of Milky Way and releases a stunning image of it

The neutron star discovered using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a rare variety that has both a low magnetic field and no stellar companion.

Scientists find a carbon-rich asteroid which may provide insights about the Sun's formation

The object likely formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has been flung billions of kilometres from its origin to its current home in the Kuiper Belt.

Astronomers find an exoplanet with a cloud-free atmosphere that's larger than Jupiter and has Saturn's mass

The spectrum of WASP-96b shows the complete fingerprint of sodium, which can only be observed for an atmosphere free of clouds,

Astronomers discover the oldest supernova which took place 10.5 billion years ago

The exploding star, named DES16C2nm, was detected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES), an international collaboration to map several hundred million galaxies.

Astronomers discover an 'astonishing' overabundance of massive stars in a neighbouring galaxy

Massive stars are particularly important for astronomers because of their enormous influence on their surroundings (known as their 'feedback').

Astronomers detect titanium oxide in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-19b

The exoplanet WASP-19b, which is about the same mass as Jupiter, is so close to its parent star that it completes an orbit in just 19 hours.