Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. It’s one of the most common words used by astronomers—and ...

Distinguishing between planetary nebulae and supernova remnants often necessitates a multiwavelength observational approach due to their potential visual similarities, despite their fundamentally ...

When a star runs out of fuel, it sheds its outer layers of gas and, if it doesn't explode in a supernova, forms a glowing shell of ionized gas that expands into space. Shells like these are known as ...

Hazy, cloudy, colorful, spellbinding nebulae may be the most beautiful objects in the universe. Under a workaday telescope, they appear hazy, like a cloud. You might exclaim, “What’s this in my way? I ...

Two astrophysicists have finally solved a 20-year-old astrophysical puzzle concerning the lower-than-expected amounts of the element sulphur found in Planetary Nebulae (PNe) in comparison to ...

Astronomers studying dying stars’ colorful cast-offs have discovered a mysterious pattern: Some planetary nebulae in the Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge are strangely aligned, according to a study to ...