An impression of the Red Planet, Mars, second smallest in the Solar System (after Mercury)....

Researchers from the University of Sheffield and Imperial College have discovered and old, evolved star interloping through a youn star-forming region (centre right). Astronomers previously thought that evolved stars cannot encounter young stars ad t...

Kepler-444 A is an orange main-sequence star twice the age of the Sun, an incredible 11 billion years old. Orbiting this are two red dwarfs (center, right) and five known planets. All planets orbit so close to their parent star that life as we know i...

Artwork showing five common types of galaxy. Clockwise from top left these are: spiral, lenticular, barred spiral, elliptical and irregular. Elliptical galaxies are common, and contain mainly old stars. They also have relatively less gas and dust tha...

... d metal that are the leftovers from the process that created the Sun and all the planets of the Solar System; Astronomers of old referred to them as the 'vermin of the skies' because their slow motions across the background of stars often polluted th ...

Artwork showing two of the potential dangers of low-Earth orbit. Since the late 1950s, the amount of junk in orbit around the Earth has escalated dramatically. The debris includes pieces of old spacecraft and objects accidentally dropped by astronaut...

Astronomers from the University of Warwick, UK, have observed a pair of old white dwarf stars, both of which have had their atmospheres polluted by infalling planetary material. The two stars do not orbit each others and are not related. One is a coo...