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Iconic object exhibited for the first time, alongside works by Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking at Cambridge ̽»¨Ö±²¥ Library.

̽»¨Ö±²¥strange orbits of some objects in the farthest reaches of our solar system, hypothesised by some astronomers to be shaped by an unknown ninth planet, can instead be explained by the combined gravitational force of small objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, say researchers.Ìý

Researchers have identified a young star with four Jupiter and Saturn-sized planets in orbit around it, the first time that so many massive planets have been detected in such a young system.Ìý

Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist.Ìý

Professor Stephen Hawking’s final theory on the origin of the universe, which he worked on in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog from KU Leuven, has been in the Journal of High Energy Physics.Ìý

̽»¨Ö±²¥European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has produced the richest star catalogue to date, including high-precision measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars and revealing previously unseen details of our home Galaxy.Ìý

Astronomers have looked back to a time soon after the Big Bang, and have discovered swirling gas in some of the earliest galaxies to have formed in the Universe. These ‘newborns’ – observed as they appeared nearly 13 billion years ago – spun like a whirlpool, similar to our own Milky Way. This is the first time that it has been possible to detect movement in galaxies at such an early point in the Universe’s history.Ìý

It is theoretically possible that habitable planets exist around pulsars - spinning neutron stars that emit short, quick pulses of radiation. According to new research, such planets must have an enormous atmosphere that converts the deadly x-rays and high energy particles of the pulsar into heat. ̽»¨Ö±²¥results, from astronomers at the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge and Leiden ̽»¨Ö±²¥, are reported in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Gravity is one of the universe's great mysteries. We decided to find out why.

Think you know what gravity is? Think again. New research is revealing how little we know about this most mysterious of forces.

In a galaxy far away, two dead stars begin a final spiral into a massive collision. ̽»¨Ö±²¥resulting explosion unleashes a huge burst of energy, sending ripples across the very fabric of space. In the nuclear cauldron of the collision, atoms are ripped apart to form entirely new elements and scattered outward across the Universe.Ìý