Supernovae, those intensely bright objects formed when a star reaches the end of its life, 'start' with a big, expelling most of their material out into space, and it's always interesting when we see it.

Spiral galaxy NGC 6984 played host to one of these explosions back in 2012, SN 2012im. Now, another star has exploded, forming supernova SN 2013ek, which is visible in this image as the prominent, star-like bright object just slightly above and to the right of the galaxy's center.

A new study has affirmed the hypothesis that microorganisms which produce methane swim toward the hydrogen gas they need to stay alive.

The sun emitted its sixth significant flare since Oct. 23, 2013, peaking at 11:26 p.m. EST on Nov. 7, 2013.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation - the radiation from a flare can't pass through Earth's atmosphere to affect us but, when intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

This flare is classified as an X1.1 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, etc.

First responders working at ground zero in New York City following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center were exposed to cement dust, smoke, glass fibers, and heavy metals.

Research presented at the American Society of Nephrology Kidney Week 2013 in Atlanta, GA say  exposure to high levels of such particulate matter caused significant damage to first responders' kidneys.

The final conference of CO2CARE - CO2 Site Closure Assessment Research - brought together 60 experts from the academic, industrial and regulatory worlds to discuss technologies and procedures for a safe and sustainable closure of geological CO2 storage sites.

An international team of high-energy physicists says the discovery of an electrically charged subatomic particle called Z_c(4020) is a sign that they have begun to unveil a whole new family of four-quark objects.  

The Beijing Spectrometer (BESIII) collaboration previously announced the discovery of a four-quark particle called Z_c(3900) in April of this year.  The results have come about through a dedicated study of the byproducts of the anomalous Y(4260) particle.