One of our universe’s biggest stars has dramatically turned into a rare, yellow ‘hypergiant’ star, and astronomers aren’t sure when it will go supernova.
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The observations offer a rare glimpse into our solar system’s early history.
Two aging stars in the binary system AFGL 4106 sculpt a glowing, egg-shaped nebula as they approach the end of their lives.
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For the first time, a much younger version of the Sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy, by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The bubble – called an “astrosphere” – completely surrounds the juvenile star. Winds from the star’s surface are blowing up the bubble and filling it with hot gas […]
Forty million years ago, a star in a nearby galaxy exploded, spewing material across space and generating a brilliant beacon of light. That light traveled across the cosmos, reaching Earth June 29, 2025, where it was detected by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae. Astronomers immediately turned their resources to this new supernova, designated 2025pht, […]
Astronomers suspect the heart of the Milky Way may be hiding a big secret: a rapidly spinning, highly magnetic, neutron star-powered pulsar.
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An organic molecule called methanimine was found scattered throughout a dense clump of gas and dust 554 light-years away.
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Astronomers have spotted a heart in the cosmos — not Cupid’s doing, but a dying star shedding its layers — just in time for Valentine’s Day.
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Astronomers witnessed a star emitting as much energy in mere moments as our sun puts out in a few months. The dramatic observation gives a direct look into the brutal physics of these stellar events.
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“We studied the last several orbits before the merger, when the entwined magnetic fields undergo rapid and dramatic changes, and modeled potentially observable high-energy signals.”
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