Stellar Evolution
1 in 10 Red Giants are Covered in Spots, and They Rotate Surprisingly Quickly
Sunspots are common on our Sun. These darker patches are cooler than their surroundings, and they're caused by spikes in…
Stars Like Our Sun Become Lithium Factories as They Die
In the beginning, the big bang created three elements: hydrogen, helium, and lithium. But it only produced a trace of…
This is a Binary Star in the Process of Formation
About 460 light years away lies the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. It's a molecular cloud—an active star-forming region—and it's one…
Much of the Lithium Here on Earth Came from Exploding White Dwarf Stars
The Big Bang produced the Universe's hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium. Since then, it's been up to stars (for…
Was Betelgeuse Formed by Merging Stars?
Modern humans—or Homo Sapiens—have only been around for about 250,000 years. That's only the blink of an eye in cosmological…
Super-Supernova Released Ten Times More Energy than a Regular Supernova
It's easy to run out of superlatives and adjectives when your puny human language is trying to describe humongously-energetic events…
Astronomers Watch a Nova Go From Start to Finish for the First Time
A nova is a dramatic episode in the life of a binary pair of stars. It's an explosion of bright…
Two White Dwarfs Merged Together Into a Single “Ultramassive” White Dwarf
Astronomers have found a white dwarf that was once two white dwarfs. The pair of stars merged into one about…
Here’s a New Planetary Nebula for Your Collection: CVMP 1
Some stars die a beautiful death, ejecting their outer layers of gas into space, then lighting it all up with…
Bizarre Star Could be the Result of Two White Dwarfs Merging Together
Stars live and die on epic time scales. Tens of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years, even billions…