The death of a massive nearby star billions of years ago offers evidence the sun was born in a star cluster, say astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rather than being an only child, the sun could have hundreds or thousands of celestial siblings, now dispersed across the heavens. In a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomy professors Leslie W. Looney and Brian D. Fields, and undergraduate student John J. Tobin take a close look at short-lived radioactive isotopes once present in primitive meteorites. The researchers‘ conclusions could reshape current theories on how, when and where planets form around stars.

https://news.illinois.edu/supernova-radioisotopes-show-sun-was-born-in-star-cluster-scientists-say/

Abstract @ arXiv.org

Supernova Debris in the Solar System

For the first time, astronomers have looked inside quasars – the brightest objects in the universe – and have seen evidence of black holes. The study lends further confirmation to what scientists have long suspected – that quasars are made up of super-massive black holes and the super-heated disks of material that are spiraling into them. The results of the Ohio State University-led project was reported on Thursday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) High Energy Astrophysics Division in San Francisco.
Research News Story @ Ohio State University

A gigantic sonic boom generated by a super-massive black hole has been found with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, along with evidence for a cacophony of deep sound. This discovery was made by using data from the longest X-ray observation ever of M87, a nearby giant elliptical galaxy. M87 is centrally located in the Virgo cluster of galaxies and is known to harbour one of the Universe’s most massive black holes.
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/m87/

NASA and Italian scientists using Swift have for the first time determined what the particle jets streaming from black holes are made of. Black hole particle jets are commonly seen in quasars and other celestial objects, shooting off at nearly light speed. According to the Swift team, these jets appear to be made of protons and electrons, solving a mystery as old as the discovery of jets themselves in the 1970s. The jets observed by Swift contain about the mass of Jupiter if it were pulverized and blasted out into intergalactic space.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/swift_blazars.html

Scientists using NASA’s Swift satellite have observed two dozen recent star explosions, called supernovae, quickly after the event and have discovered never-before-seen properties, some of which run counter to prevailing theories.

https://www3.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/supernova_mugshot.html

Astronomers have found possible proofs of stellar vampirism in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they found that some hot, bright, and apparently young stars in the cluster present less carbon and oxygen than the majority of their sisters. This indicates that these few stars likely formed by taking their material from another star.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0637/