Bulge Found on Ganymede

Planetary scientists have discovered a previously unknown 3-km-high equatorial bulge on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, suggesting it formed at the poles and once massive enough rotated on a hidden global ocean separated from the rocky crust of the moon.

Most Massive Black Hole

Astronomers have discovered an ultraluminous quasar (SDSS J0100+2802) powered by the most supermassive black hole yet known with 12 billion solar masses, presenting a theoretical puzzle as to how such large objects quickly formed a mere 900 million years after the Big Bang.

Planet's Giant Ring System

Astronomers have detected the first exoplanet (J1407b) with an extensive ring system similar to Saturn but about 200 times larger than those of our own ringed planet, possibly a young planetary system in an early transient phase of satellite formation.

Half of Stars Outside Galaxies

Analyzing a faint background glow detected by the Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER), astronomers estimate that as many as half of all stars exist outside of galaxies, left adrift as a result of galactic collisions.

Two Rings around Asteroid

Astronomers have found two sharply defined rings surrounding the asteroid Chariklo, at 250 km in diameter the largest centaur orbiting between Saturn and Uranus in the outer solar system and the smallest object yet seen to host a stable ring system.

Most Distant in Solar System

Astronomers have discovered a new distant dwarf planet (2012 VP113) that is the most distant known object in our solar system, part of the inner Oort cloud with an elliptical orbit of 80 AU at its closest point to the Sun and perturbed enough to suggest the existence of a further large, planet-sized massive body.

Space River of Hydrogen Found

Astronomers have discovered a very faint, tenuous filament of hydrogen gas known as a cold flow winding through intergalactic space and into nearby spiral galaxy NGC 6946, supporting new theories of star formation using extragalactic sources of matter.

Accuracy of Measured Universe

Using baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) as a standard unit of measure, astronomers with the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey have measured the distances between galaxies in the universe to within 1% accuracy covering 10,000 square degrees of sky.

Water Found on Exoplanets

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected traces of the chemical signature of water in the atmospheres of five different exoplanets (WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b) orbiting nearby stars.

Low-Density Kuiper Belt Object

Astronomers have identified an intermediate-sized body of rock and ice (2002 UX25) in the Kuiper belt with a measured density significantly less than liquid water, challenging present planetary formation theories.

First Tilted Solar System

NASA's Kepler spacecraft has detected the first known star system with two large planets that orbit on a plane at a steep 45-degree angle relative to the stellar equator, the gas giant Kepler-56 about 2800 light years distant.

Voyager Leaves Solar System

A team of researchers has made the call that the Voyager I space probe has finally left the solar system (actually crossing over last summer) based on the disappearance of solar particle counts even though the local magnetic field has not changed, describing the irregular and ill-defined boundary as a "heliosheath depletion region."

Mysterious Deep-Space Explosions

Astronomers from the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope have detected four point sources of powerful fast radio bursts (FRB) of unknown origin outside the Milky Way galaxy and billions of light-years away, each lasting only a few milliseconds yet giving off more energy than does our Sun in 300,000 years.

Dying Dwarf Galaxy Found

Astronomers have spotted what is believed to be a dwarf elliptical galaxy (IC 3418) 54 million light years away in the process of "dying" as its inherent reservoir of gas is forced out as fireball features through a process of ram pressure stripping, essentially draining its "lifeblood" of gaseous raw material into space.

Dual-Emission Pulsar Identified

Astronomers have identified a pulsar (PSR B0943+10) that on roughly a half-hour timescale flips almost instantly between two extreme emission modes, one of strong x-rays and one of strong radio waves, through a mechanism that cannot be explained by current physics.

Largest Known Structure

Astronomers have discovered a large quasar group (LQG) that forms a structure 4 billion light years across, the largest known structure ever detected and one of such a size that it challenges the Cosmological Principle and modern cosmology for current estimates of the scale of the universe.

New Stage of Planet Birth

Astronomers have spotted gaps or filaments of material in the dust ring surrounding the forming star HD 142527, a feature caused by orbiting planetesimals that helps the star to grow and a byproduct of planetary formation previously theorized but never before detected.

Giant Black Hole Discovered

Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole that is 17 billion times the mass of our Sun at the center of the disk galaxy NGC 1277, challenging current cosmological models as possibly the largest black hole yet discovered and possessing an unprecedented 14% of that galaxy's total mass.

Comet Belts Discovered

Astronomers have discovered large comet belts surrounding two nearby planetary systems (GJ 581 and 61 Vir) that each contain more than 10 times the comets in our own solar system's Kupier Belt.

Rogue Planet Spotted

Astronomers have visually spotted a so-called "rogue planet" (designated CFBDSIR2149-0403), a planet moving through interstellar space and not orbiting a star, just 100 light years distant.