News tagged with supergiant star

The lives of stars, or astronomers as paparazzi

Stars live for a long time, with even the most massive stars having lifetimes measured in millions of years. But, for a mere few thousand years towards the end of their lives, some massive stars go through ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 17, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Some nearby young stars may be much older than previously thought

Low in the south in the summer sky shines the constellation Scorpius and the bright, red supergiant star Antares. Many of the brightest stars in Scorpius, and hundreds of its fainter stars, are among the youngest stars found ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 21, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

The flames of Betelgeuse: New image reveals vast nebula around famous supergiant star

(PhysOrg.com) -- Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the constellation of Orion, is one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It is also one of the biggest, being almost the size of the orbit of Jupiter — ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 23, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (12) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Cygnus X-1: Blue supergiant pairs with black hole

Discovered in 1964 during a rocket flight, Cygnus X-1 holds the record for being the strongest X-ray source seen from Earth. The blue supergiant star designated as HDE 226868 is just part of this high-mass ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 23, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 2

Speed demon creates a shock

(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as some drivers obey the speed limit while others treat every road as if it were the Autobahn, some stars move through space faster than others. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Supergiant star with a thick dust disc

How is it possible that HD 62623, a hot super-giant star on the verge of death, is surrounded by a disc, generally only associated with infant stars? Using long-baseline stellar interferometry at ESO's VLT ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 26, 2011 | popularity 2.3 / 5 (3) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Betelgeuse, a boiling and magnetic supergiant star

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international research team, lead by French astrophysicists from the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Toulouse-Tarbes, has detected a magnetic field at the surface of the supergiant star ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 18, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (12) | comments 6

Cygnus X-1: Still a 'Star' After All Those Years

Since its discovery 45 years ago, Cygnus X-1 has been one of the most intensively studied cosmic X-ray sources. About a decade after its discovery, Cygnus X-1 secured a place in the history of astronomy when ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 28, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 4