Stellar Evolution
Astronomers Have a New Trick to Work out the Age of Stars
Determining the age of a star is surprisingly tricky and has wide error bars. It's only inside star clusters that…
Record-Breaking Magnetar was There in the Data All Along
The cosmic zoo has strange beasts that astronomers stumble across in the most fascinating ways. Not long ago a team…
A Dying Red Giant Star has Thrown Out Giant Symmetrical Loops of Gas and Dust
The Gemini South telescope has captured a new image of the glowing nebula IC 2220. Nicknamed the Toby Jug Nebula,…
Supervillains Take Note. Here’s a New Way to Destroy a Star
If you're an evil genius supervillain looking to freak out your enemy with a big messy space kablooie, here's a…
Astronomers Find a White Dwarf Pulsar
When astronomers talk about the "end states" of stellar evolution, several categories come to mind: black holes, neutron stars/pulsars, and…
A White Dwarf is Starting to Crystallize into Diamond
White dwarfs are the stellar remnants of stars like our Sun. They're strange objects, and astrophysicists think their cores can…
Astronomers Find a “Red Nova”: A Main-Sequence Star Just Eating its Planet
Back in 2020 astronomers observed a Red Nova, which while enormously powerful, is on the low side of energetic events…
Astronomers are Starting to Find the Wreckage Left Over from the First Stars in the Universe
The first stars were odd ducks. Nobody's observed them yet (although astronomers are hopeful JWST might spot them someday) but…
The Discovery of a Hot Neptune that Shouldn’t Exist
1800 light-years away, an unlikely survivor orbits an aged star. This rare planet is called a hot Neptune, and it's…
JWST Sees Organic Molecules Swirling Around a Newborn Star
One of the most interesting questions we can ask is, "How did life form?". To answer it, scientists go back…