Roger W. Romani

A gas giant the size of Jupiter orbits the pulsar PSR J2322-2650b, heated to 1900°C. Its atmosphere is thick soot of carbon chains, not the usual water vapor. Carbon is a hundred times more abundant than oxygen compared to normal, and ten thousand times more than nitrogen. This doesn't fit the 'blac

Astronomers measured the mass of a neutron star in a binary system—it turned out to be 2.35 times heavier than the Sun. This pushes the theoretical mass limit for such objects up to 2.27 solar masses. The result narrows down the possibilities for how matter behaves under unimaginable pressure.

A pair of white dwarfs whirls in a deadly dance: one star steals helium from its neighbor, spinning up a glowing disk. The orbit shrinks, energy leaves as gravitational waves. The rate of approach has been measured — the future LISA detector will catch the signal in four years.