Robert Lea

What knocked this black hole over onto its side? It's a cosmic "whodunnit."

The Czech billionaire has won over the government and the Communication Workers Union in his £3.6 billion takeover of the 500-year-old British institution

"We came across a group of outbursting variable stars exhibiting very characteristic triangle-shaped symmetrical outbursts that did not resemble any previously known variable stars."

"We came across a group of outbursting variable stars exhibiting very characteristic triangle-shaped symmetrical outbursts that did not resemble any previously known variable stars."

Superman isn't the only one with X-ray vision. Plenty of exploding stars are also adept at blasting outbursts of this high-energy light.

The daring NASA spacecraft made its closest-ever approach to the sun at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT) on Christmas Eve (Dec. 24).

"I think of JuMBOs as a cross between stars and brown dwarfs - they would have been like stars had it not been for the radiation from the more massive stars, which has sculpted them to be more like brown dwarfs."

"I think of JuMBOs as a cross between stars and brown dwarfs - they would have been like stars had it not been for the radiation from the more massive stars, which has sculpted them to be more like brown dwarfs."

Scientists have received an unexpected Christmas gift this year: a potential solution to the mystery of JuMBOs, strange celestial objects that seem not to be planets or stars.