Accretion as a research area investigates the physical processes by which diffuse material gravitationally aggregates to form larger astrophysical structures, including planets, stars, black holes, and galaxies. It encompasses the study of accretion disks, angular momentum transport, magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, radiative transfer, and the interplay between accretion flows and outflows or jets. This field integrates analytical theory, numerical simulations, and multiwavelength observations to quantify mass accretion rates, efficiency of gravitational energy conversion into radiation, and feedback on the surrounding medium, thereby constraining models of structure formation, compact object growth, and high-energy phenomena in various cosmic environments.
A smaller white dwarf star (left) pulls material from a larger star into a swirling accretion disk in this artist's concept released Nov. 19, 2025, to illustrate the first use of NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) ...
Astronomy
Jan 12, 2026
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Astronomers at the University of Warwick have discovered that black holes don't just consume matter—they manage it, choosing whether to blast it into space as high-speed jets or sweep it away in vast winds.
Astronomy
Jan 12, 2026
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An international team of astronomers has uncovered the most unmistakable evidence yet that the powerful jets launched by newborn stars reliably record a star's most violent growth episodes, confirming a long-standing model ...
Astronomy
Dec 16, 2025
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Carl Sagan famously said that "We're all made of star stuff." But he didn't elaborate on how that actually happened. Yes, many of the molecules in our bodies could only have been created in massive supernovae explosions—hence ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 15, 2025
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A research team has investigated long-term X-ray variability in the neutron star NGC 7793 P13, an object thought to be driven by supercritical accretion, where an extraordinary amount of gas falls onto the object and emits ...
Astronomy
Dec 14, 2025
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A research team from the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with other researchers, has developed a new method to estimate how stellar-mass compact objects (COs)—including black ...
Astronomy
Dec 10, 2025
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Stars form in massive clouds of gas called molecular clouds. As they form, they accrete gas from these clouds, and as the stars rotate, gas and dust accumulates in a rotating disk around the star called a protoplanetary disk. ...
Astronomy
Dec 5, 2025
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A team of astronomers led by Paulo Cortes, a scientist with the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Joint ALMA Observatory, have made a groundbreaking discovery about how young star ...
Astronomy
Oct 22, 2025
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Astronomers have identified an enormous "growth spurt" in a so-called rogue planet. Unlike the planets in our solar system, these objects do not orbit stars, free-floating on their own instead. The new observations, made ...
Astronomy
Oct 2, 2025
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Researchers from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have revealed for the first time how gas flows from vast distances toward the disk surrounding a nascent massive star in the ...
Astronomy
Sep 19, 2025
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