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The 500 and more known exoplanets are plenty weird and wonderful, thanks in large part to many of them orbiting perilously close to their stars. The extreme heating can drive supersonic winds and melt rocky surfaces.

If you think your new digital camera produces massive files, think again. Yesterday, at the 217th meeting of the American Astronomical Society here, astronomers presented the largest color image of the night sky ever made, at over 20 million megabytes.

Another movie about Simon’s Cat, this time about Simon’s Sister’s Dog. Previous movies can be found here.

This gossamer ring in the sky may look as light and lovely as a soap bubble, but its appearance belies its unimaginably violent birth: The shell of reddish gas is actually the remnants of a supernova explosion riding a shock wave and ripping through space at more than 18 million kilometers per hour.

Happy holidays!

So you think you live on a carbon-rich planet? Silly Earthling! Although terrestrial life is based on carbon, the element makes up precious little of the Earth’s crust. Instead, oxygen - locked in silicate rocks - constitutes nearly half of the surface beneath your feet.

Astronomers may have found the youngest black hole ever seen in our cosmic neighborhood: light from a then-30-year-old toddler located in a galaxy 50 million light-years away. Scientists have seen infant black holes before, but they’ve never been able to nail down an exact birthday.

Want to demolish Earth? A new Web site allows you to choose the form of the destructor. Just type in a few variables such as diameter, density, and velocity and Impact: Earth!