Black holes are gatherers, not hunters. They lie in wait until a hapless star wanders by. When the star gets close enough, the black hole's gravitational grasp violently rips it apart and sloppily devours its gasses while ...
Astronomy
Jan 13, 2023
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883
Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it's a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its life, ...
Astronomy
Apr 4, 2024
1
61
A team of researchers at the University of Michigan has conducted a thought experiment regarding the nature of a universe that could support life without the weak force. In their paper uploaded to the ArXiv preprint server, ...
An international team of researchers has found that neon inside a certain massive star can consume the electrons in the core, a process called electron capture, which causes the star to collapse into a neutron star and produce ...
Astronomy
Mar 31, 2020
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2125
(PhysOrg.com) -- Using radio and infrared telescopes, astronomers have obtained a first tantalizing look at a crucial early stage in star formation. The new observations promise to help scientists understand the early stages ...
Astronomy
Mar 14, 2012
0
1
As dying stars take their final few breaths of life, they gently sprinkle their ashes into the cosmos through the magnificent planetary nebulae. These ashes, spread via stellar winds, are enriched with many different chemical ...
Astronomy
Jul 6, 2020
6
5424
A newborn star typically goes through four stages of adolescence. It begins life as a protostar still enshrouded in its natal molecular cloud, accreting new material and developing a proto-planetary disc. Slowly, stellar ...
Astronomy
Jun 13, 2016
5
196
Despite the many impressive discoveries humans have made about the universe, scientists are still unsure about the birth story of our solar system.
Astronomy
Dec 22, 2017
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520
Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Earth (only 4.28 light-years away) is getting a lot of attention these days. It hosts a planet, Proxima Cen b, whose mass is about 1.3 Earth-mass (though it could be larger, depending ...
Astronomy
Apr 3, 2017
4
389
Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system within 10,000 light-years of Earth, is known for its surprising behavior, erupting twice in the 19th century for reasons scientists still don't understand. A long-term ...
Astronomy
Jan 7, 2015
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1776
