Four interesting posts on astronomy – at http://phys.org/print290928922.html … ESOs Very Large Telescope Interferometer has observed dust around a huge black hole which seems to show it being blown away from the hole rather than being consumed. Black Holes ringed by doughnuts of cosmic dust are likened to small whirlpools around the plughole of a kitchen sink, forming before being swallowed. We now have evidence that consumption is not necessarily what is happening.
At http://phys.org/print290942274.html … a burnt out star, described as a crystalised remnant, has been seen to pulsate. Astronomers now have the task of matching the pulsation periods observed in the stars with those predicted in various models of its structure and interior.
At http://phys.org/print290935366.html … an explosion of a White Dwarf star provided data to measure distances in the universe – see also www.caastro.org
At http://phys.org/print290955253.html … returns to the transitory third Van Allen belt around the Earth which came and went presumably as a result of a particular CME outburst from the Sun (not yet targeted). It appears in a paper in Geophysical Research Letters and the same story pops up at Anthony Watts blog.