Researchers have detected fluorine -- an element found in our bones and teeth as fluoride -- in a galaxy so far away that its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us, a discovery that is ...

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Mansi Kasliwal is a professor of astronomy at the famed Caltech in Pasadena, California. She follows ...

Some classes of stars create light elements, such as oxygen and silicon; others also craft heavier ones, such as iron and ...

For decades, astronomers have wondered what the very first stars in the universe were like. These stars formed new chemical elements, which enriched the universe and allowed the next generations of ...

A surprising new study reveals that the first stars appeared in a pre-heated universe, challenging earlier ideas about early cosmic conditions.

The white dwarfs reach speeds of almost 4x needed to escape the Milky Way’s gravitational pull. Researchers at the Technion-Israeli Institute of Technology recently discovered the origin of some of ...

At just 25, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin applied quantum physics to a treasure trove of astronomical observations to show that stars are mostly hydrogen and helium.

Gold, uranium, and other heavy elements on Earth did not form here. They were born in the violent deaths of massive stars and the collisions of neutron stars, traveling across the galaxy before ...

Luke Keller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...