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View Pluto’s bladed terrain in 3-D

One of the strangest landforms spotted by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft when it flew past Pluto was the “bladed” terrain formally named Tartarus Dorsa. The blades reach hundreds of feet high and are typically spaced a few miles apart. No geology degree is necessary to see why the terrain is so interesting — just grab your red and green 3-D spectacles.

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Andromeda Galaxy’s first spinning neutron star found

Decades of searching in the Andromeda Galaxy has finally paid off, with the discovery of an elusive breed of stellar corpse — a neutron star, by ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope. Neutron stars are the small and extraordinarily dense remains of a once-massive star that exploded as a powerful supernova at the end of its natural life.

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Global Astronomy Month begins 1 April

Global Astronomy Month (GAM), organised each April by Astronomers Without Borders, is the world’s largest annual global celebration of astronomy. Each GAM brings new ideas and new opportunities, and GAM 2016 is no exception, once again bringing enthusiasts together worldwide to celebrate Astronomers Without Borders’ motto: One People, One Sky.

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Hubble peers into the heart of the Milky Way

Peering deep into the heart of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a rich tapestry of more than half a million stars. Most of the stars pictured in the image are members of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster, the densest and most massive star cluster in the galaxy. Hidden in the centre is the Milky Way’s resident supermassive black hole.