A few years ago, a friend of mine, who is also an advanced amateur astronomer, had something to say about the time in which we live: “I cannot remember life before the Internet.” I have to agree.

Last year, senior Dan Van Noord discovered a subdwarf B binary star, which is akin to winning the astronomy lottery. Out of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy, it’s estimated that only one ...

Today’s astronomers don’t really look at stars or galaxies so much as images produced from data generated by light. If that same data were used to produce 3-D printouts, tactile displays or sound, ...