An international group of scientists have studied the chemical composition of 50 protoplanetary-disk forming regions in the Perseus Molecular Cloud, and found that despite being in the same cloud, the amounts of complex organic molecules they contain are quite different.

With the help of machine-learning techniques, a team of astronomers has discovered a dozen quasars that have been warped by a naturally occurring cosmic 'lens' and split into four similar images. Quasars are extremely luminous cores of distant galaxies that are powered by supermassive black holes.

An analysis by Dark Energy Survey physicists yields more precise estimates of the average density of matter as well as its propensity to clump together - two key parameters that help physicists probe the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Researchers the world over have long believed that 70 percent of the universe is composed of dark energy, a substance that makes it possible for the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate. But in a new study, researchers tested a model which suggests that the universe's expansion is due to a dark substance with a kind of magnetic force.

Scientists discover one of the first black holes of its kind. Intermediate mass black holes (100 to 100,000 times the mass of the sun) have only been directly detected once before (LIGO, last year). They form an important link between the smaller black holes left behind after the deaths of stars, and the supermassive black holes which lurk in the hearts of every galaxy. The astrophysicists also find that there are about 40,000 of these objects in the neighbourhood of our galaxy.