Research by a Michigan State University scientist sheds new light on how stars and galaxies were formed back in the early days of the universe – some 13 billion years ago.

The astrophysicist João Alves, director of the Calar Alto Observatory in Almeria, and his colleague Andreas Bürkert, from the German observatory in the University of Munich, believe that "the inevitable future of the starless cloud Barnard 68" is to collapse and give rise to a new star, according to an article which has been published recently in The Astrophysical Journal.

Researchers have witnessed a star being transformed into an object that spins at almost 600 times a second using telescopes in the USA and the Netherlands, and CSIRO's Parkes telescope in Australia.

Theorists have long wondered how massive stars--up to 120 times the mass of the Sun--can form without blowing away the clouds of gas and dust that feed their growth. But the problem turns out to be less mysterious than it once seemed.

Researchers have discovered evidence that blue stragglers in globular clusters, whose existence has long puzzled astronomers, are the result of 'stellar cannibalism' in binary stars. In other words, binary stars are eating each other and turning into a blue straggler.

Two new efforts have taken a famous supernova remnant from the static to the dynamic. A new movie of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows changes in time never seen before in this type of object. A separate team will also release a dramatic three-dimensional visualization of the same remnant.

The center of the Milky Way presents astronomers with a paradox: it holds young stars, but no one is sure how those stars got there. The galactic center is wracked with powerful gravitational tides stirred by a 4 million solar-mass black hole.

Fasten your seat belts -- we're faster, heavier, and more likely to collide than we thought. Astronomers making high-precision measurements of the Milky Way say our home Galaxy is rotating about 100,000 miles per hour faster than previously understood.

Found in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, 30 Doradus is one of the largest massive star forming regions close to the Milky Way. Enormous stars in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, are producing intense radiation and searing winds of multimillion-degree gas that carve out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust.

For every rock star who hits it big, there are thousands of artists who never make it out of their own back yards. Before Madonna was “Madonna,” she was a local success in New York clubs. Until Britney Spears became a global pop superstar, she performed in dance revues in her native Louisiana.

Something vital is missing in the far distant reaches of the Universe: hydrogen - the raw material for stars, planets and possible life.

Did you know that the Sun is vibrating? It's very hard to see, but researchers who study the Sun can measure how strong those vibrations are. They can also tell how smooth the surface of the Sun is. But, until now, researchers have not been able to see any other stars in our solar system clearly enough to measure those kinds of things.