Using the 8.2 meter Subaru telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Carol Grady form NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center looked in the constellation

NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) scanned the entire sky gathering data.

A giant star cluster (R136A) in the Large Magellanic Cloud holds the largest star ever found named R136a1. Astronomers believe the star formed with a mass of 320 times the mass of our sun.

ESA’s Herschel Infrared Space Observatory has discovered the role of ultraviolet light in the creation of water in space.

Fewer stars are being made now than in the past. Scientists don’t really know why. In a “normal” galaxy, stars are forming at a rate equal to 10 times the mass of our sun per year.

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered an extremely bright star located toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered many “infant” or new stars forming in the area of the head of Orion (the Hunter) located about 1,200 light-years away.

A team of astronomers using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mount Kea, Hawaii has measured the magnetic field of the star Tau Bootis in the constellation Bootes (the Herdsman.) (It looks like an ice cream cone and can be seen in the summer.) Astronomers say the star has about 1.5 solar masses and is about 50 light years from Earth.

A pulsar is formed when a very large star reaches the end of its life cycle. The large star becomes unstable as it uses up its fuel. It explodes as a supernova. The outer materials are blasted into space. The center collapses into a fast-spinning, radio-wave-emitting pulsar. The original solar system of planets, moons, and other bodies orbiting the star is destroyed as a result of the huge explosion.

There are many remarkable things about Polaris, the North Star. It lies less than one degree from the North Celestial Pole, and has been used for navigation for thousands of years. Polaris A is a very young star. It’s only about 100 million years old, about the same age as the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus (the Bull).