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A star that goes nova is only supposed to explode once… right?

That long-held assumption was upended when astronomers spotted a Type II-P supernova in progress in a star 509 million light-years away on September 8, 2014. The exploding star in question, iPTF14hls, was predicted to fade within 100 days, but its luminosity not only persisted for the next 600 days, it also flared to an even greater brightness at least five more times, implying that this single star had experienced a supernova at least six times.
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Astronomers have discovered what is now the smallest known star in the galaxy, in a system roughly 600 light-years from Earth. Part of a trinary star system, the smaller of the pair, EBLM J0555-57Ab, is estimated to only be 8 percent of the mass of our own Sun, in a compact package no bigger than Saturn.

This itty-bitty sun may represent the smallest size that a star can be: to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that provides a star’s energy, the gases within must be brought to a high pressure and temperature, meaning that there needs to be enough mass present in the star to provide these conditions.
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A team of astronomers have discovered a system of three Earth-like exoplanets orbiting a small star that is only 40 light-years away from Earth, that are considered good candidates for supporting life.

The star in question, an ultracool dwarf called TRAPPIST-1, is only a bit bigger than Jupiter, and only emits approximately one two-hundredths of the output of our Sun, making it too faint to see with the naked eye. The planets in question, however, orbit very close to the star, allowing them to gather enough light from the star to keep warm. Because of their extremely close orbits, the planets orbit TRAPPIST-1 extremely quickly: the innermost planet takes 1.5 Earth days for a single revolution, and the second planet’s year is only 2.4 days.
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One of astronomy’s most secretive phenomena, black holes, has yielded yet another fascinating puzzle to astronomers — and in the process, offering what may be new insight into how the universe formed. A recent survey of a region of deep space has found that the powerful jets that are propelled by some supermassive black holes are uncannily aligned, all pointing in the same direction.
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