Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. For over 30 years, astronomers were baffled by a star called HD 44179, surrounded by a mysterious rectangular-shaped nebula.

The Red Rectangle Nebula doesn’t merely look modern-art cubist bizarre. Its very light is strange, its composition is food for philosophy, and it remains a hot venue of current research. Located in ...

Astronomers may not have observed the fabled 'Stairway to Heaven,' but they have photographed something almost as intriguing: ladder-like structures surrounding a dying star. This image, taken with ...

The star HD 44179 is surrounded by an extraordinary structure known as the Red Rectangle. It acquired its moniker because of its shape and its apparent color when seen in early images from Earth. This ...

The star HD 44179 is surrounded by an extraordinary structure known as the Red Rectangle. It acquired its moniker because of its shape and its apparent color when seen in early images from Earth. This ...

Ladder-like structures surrounding a dying star are just one of the features revealed in a new Hubble Space Telescope image of a nebula known as the “Red Rectangle.” Cataloged as HD 44179, this nebula ...

Imagine smoke rings seen edge-on and you may gain some insight to what's going on with the deceptive Red Rectangle, which isn't a rectangle at all. The optical illusion is the work of a pair of stars ...