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Highlighted by astronomers at the University of Rochester and the European Southern Observatory, the star — nicknamed “Scholz’s star” — has a very low tangential velocity in the sky, but it has been clocked traveling at a breakneck speed away from us. In other words, from our perspective, Scholz’s star is fleeing the scene of a collision with us. “Most stars this nearby show much larger tangential motion,” said Eric Mamajek, of the University of Rochester. “The small tangential motion and proximity initially indicated that the star was most likely either moving towards a future close encounter with the solar...

In the coming months, the world is set to witness an extraordinary celestial event as a massive explosion in the T Coronae Borealis star system is poised to create a “new star” in the night sky. This rare astronomical event, expected to occur between now and September 2024, is not the birth of a star but rather an extraordinary nova outburst from T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), situated 3,000 light-years away in the constellation of Corona Borealis. NASA described the anticipated nova outburst as a “once-in-a-lifetime viewing opportunity” as T Coronae Borealis is predicted to become as bright as the...

UT astronomers confirm new planet discovery 10/09/2002 By ALEXANDRA WITZE / The Dallas Morning News University of Texas astronomers have confirmed that a planet orbits one of a pair of stars 45 light-years (260 trillion miles) away. It is the first discovery of an "extrasolar" planet in a binary star system where the two stars orbit each other closely. Such binary systems are common in the galaxy. "When you look at the stars in the sky, every other one of them is a double star or multiple star" says Canadian astronomer Gordon Walker. Planets have been found in binary...