Stars News

May 12, 2024

Top Headlines

ONe Novae Stellar Explosion May Be Source of Our Phosphorus

May 10, 2024 — Astronomers have proposed a new theory to explain the origin of phosphorus, one of the elements important for life on Earth. The theory suggests a type of stellar explosion known as ONe novae as a major source of ...

Squeezed by Neighbors, Planet Glows With Molten Lava

May 9, 2024 — Astrophysicists discovered that an exoplanet is covered with so many active volcanoes that seen from a distance it would take on a fiery, glowing-red ...

Astrophysicists Discover a Novel Method for Hunting the First Stars

May 9, 2024 — A recent study has discovered a novel method for detecting the first-generations stars, known as Population III (Pop III) stars, which have never been directly detected. These potential discoveries about Pop III stars hold the promise of unlocking ...

Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail

Apr. 30, 2024 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show the top of the 'horse's mane' or edge of ...

Latest Headlines

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Gemini South Reveals Origin of Unexpected Differences in Giant Binary Stars

Apr. 29, 2024 — Astronomers have confirmed that differences in binary stars' composition can originate from chemical variations in the cloud of stellar material from which they formed. The results help explain why ...

Researchers Advance Detection of Gravitational Waves to Study Collisions of Neutron Stars and Black Holes

Apr. 26, 2024 — Researchers co-led a study that will improve the detection of gravitational waves--ripples in space and ...

Eruption of Mega-Magnetic Star Lights Up Nearby Galaxy

Apr. 24, 2024 — While ESA's satellite INTEGRAL was observing the sky, it spotted a burst of gamma-rays -- high-energy photons -- coming from the nearby galaxy M82. Only a few hours later, ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray ...

Giant Galactic Explosion Exposes Galaxy Pollution in Action

Apr. 22, 2024 — Astronomers have produced the first high-resolution map of a massive explosion in a nearby galaxy, providing important clues on how the space between galaxies is polluted with chemical ...

Astronomers Uncover Methane Emission on a Cold Brown Dwarf

Apr. 17, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered methane emission on a brown dwarf, an unexpected finding for such a cold and isolated world. The findings suggest that this brown dwarf might generate aurorae similar to ...

Most Massive Stellar Black Hole in Our Galaxy Found

Apr. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have identified the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. This black hole was spotted in data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission because it ...

Stellar Winds of Three Sun-Like Stars Detected for the First Time

Apr. 12, 2024 — An international research team has for the first time directly detected stellar winds from three Sun-like stars by recording the X-ray emission from their astrospheres, and placed constraints on the ...

Exoplanets True to Size

Apr. 12, 2024 — A star's magnetic field must be considered in order to correctly determine the characteristics of exoplanets from observations by space telescopes such as Kepler, James Webb, or PLATO. Researchers ...

Beautiful Nebula, Violent History: Clash of Stars Solves Stellar Mystery

Apr. 11, 2024 — When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148937, one star ...

Twinkle Twinkle Baby Star, 'Sneezes' Tell Us How You Are

Apr. 11, 2024 — Researchers have found that baby stars discharge plumes of gas, dust, and magnetic flux from their protostellar disk. The protostellar disk that surrounds developing stars are constantly penetrated ...

Astronomy: How Do Brown Dwarfs Form?

Apr. 5, 2024 — New observations provide insights into whether the birth of the giant planets takes a similar course to that of ...

Neutron Stars Are Key to Understanding Elusive Dark Matter

Apr. 5, 2024 — Scientists may be one step closer to unlocking one of the great mysteries of the universe after calculating that neutron stars might hold a key to helping us understand elusive dark ...

Stellar Collisions Produce Strange, Zombie-Like Survivors

Apr. 4, 2024 — Densely packed, fast-moving stars at the Milky Way's center can collide with each other. New research uses simulations to explore the outcomes of these collisions. Some collisions are more like ...

NASA's Webb Probes an Extreme Starburst Galaxy

Apr. 3, 2024 — A team of astronomers has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this galaxy ...

Unlocking Supernova Stardust Secrets

Mar. 28, 2024 — New research has discovered a rare dust particle trapped in an ancient extra-terrestrial meteorite that was formed by a star other than our ...

ALMA Finds New Molecular Signposts in Starburst Galaxy

Mar. 28, 2024 — The ALMA radio telescope has detected more than 100 molecular species, including many indicative of different star formation and evolution processes, in a galaxy where stars are forming much more ...

Astronomers Conduct First Search for Forming Planets With New Space Telescope

Mar. 27, 2024 — Planets form in disks of dust and gas called protoplanetary disks that whirl around a central protostar during its final ...

'Cosmic Cannibals' Expel Jets Into Space at 40 Percent the Speed of Light

Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have measured the speed of fast-moving jets in space, crucial to star formation and the distribution of elements needed for life. The jets of matter, expelled by stars deemed 'cosmic ...

Sleeping Supermassive Black Holes Awakened Briefly by Shredded Stars

Mar. 26, 2024 — Astronomers have concluded that an obscure class of galaxies known as Compact Symmetric Objects, or CSOs, are not young as previously thought but rather lead relatively short ...

Tiniest 'Starquake' Ever Detected

Mar. 26, 2024 — An orange dwarf star has yielded the tiniest 'starquakes' ever recorded, measured by an international team of ...

Astronomers Discover 49 New Galaxies in Under Three Hours

Mar. 25, 2024 — New work aimed to study the star-forming gas in a single radio galaxy. Although the team didn't find any star-forming gas in the galaxy they were studying, they instead discovered other galaxies ...

Scientists Find One of the Most Ancient Stars That Formed in Another Galaxy

Mar. 20, 2024 — The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new ...

Explaining a Supernova's 'String of Pearls'

Mar. 13, 2024 — Physicists often turn to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability to explain why fluid structures form in plasmas, but that may not be the full story when it comes to the ring of hydrogen clumps around ...

Peering Into the Tendrils of NGC 604 With NASA's Webb

Mar. 11, 2024 — The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now ...

Finding New Physics in Debris from Colliding Neutron Stars

Mar. 6, 2024 — Neutron star mergers are a treasure trove for new physics signals, with implications for determining the true nature of dark matter, according to ...

Astronomers Spot Oldest 'Dead' Galaxy Yet Observed

Mar. 6, 2024 — A galaxy that suddenly stopped forming new stars more than 13 billion years ago has been observed by astronomers. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a 'dead' ...

Discovery Tests Theory on Cooling of White Dwarf Stars

Mar. 6, 2024 — Open any astronomy textbook to the section on white dwarf stars and you'll likely learn that they are 'dead stars' that continuously cool down over time. Astronomers are challenging ...

Groundbreaking Survey Reveals Secrets of Planet Birth Around Dozens of Stars

Mar. 5, 2024 — A team of astronomers has shed new light on the fascinating and complex process of planet formation. The research brings together observations of more than 80 young stars that might have planets ...

What Makes Black Holes Grow and New Stars Form? Machine Learning Helps Solve the Mystery

Mar. 5, 2024 — It takes more than a galaxy merger to make a black hole grow and new stars form: machine learning shows cold gas is needed too to initiate rapid growth -- new research ...

Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen

Mar. 4, 2024 — Looking deeply into space and time, astronomers have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years ...