Stars, as physical systems, are self-gravitating, approximately hydrostatic spheres of plasma in which energy is generated predominantly by thermonuclear fusion in their cores and transported outward by radiation and/or convection. Their structure is governed by the equations of stellar structure, balancing gravity, gas and radiation pressure, and energy transport. Stellar properties such as mass, composition, and rotation determine their internal stratification, nucleosynthetic pathways, luminosity, temperature, and evolutionary tracks. Stars interact with their environments via radiation, stellar winds, and mass loss, and they serve as fundamental sites of element synthesis and key components of galactic and cosmological structure.
Thermonuclear reaction rates power the models that explain how stars live, explode and create the elements. A new study co-authored by NC State faculty member Richard Longland provides a comprehensive, statistically grounded ...
Astronomy
Mar 16, 2026
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Ever since physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed the concept in 1960, the "Dyson sphere" has been the holy grail of techno-signature hunters. A highly advanced civilization could build a "sphere" (or, in our more modern ...
Astronomy
Mar 7, 2026
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As a space scientist, every time I go outside with my family, I tell my children to look up at the sky. The front door of our home looks southeast, and on winter nights the constellation Orion hangs majestically just above ...
Astronomy
Mar 5, 2026
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60
Planetary systems such as our solar system take hundreds of millions of years to evolve. Since humanity has only existed for a sliver of that time, astronomers have only observed planetary systems at birth or, more often, ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 27, 2026
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A global team of astronomers, led by the University of Warwick, have used a European Space Agency (ESA) telescope to discover a planetary system that turns our understanding of planet formation upside down, with a distant ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 12, 2026
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This stunning image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a dramatic interplay of light and shadow in the Egg Nebula, sculpted by freshly ejected stardust. Located approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation ...
Astronomy
Feb 10, 2026
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Under the leadership of the University of Bonn, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa from the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics has discovered that galaxy clusters are about twice as heavy as ...
Astronomy
Feb 9, 2026
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For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic ...
Astrobiology
Feb 9, 2026
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151
A group of US astronomers may have uncovered the first evidence for a dark matter sub-halo lurking just beyond our stellar neighborhood. Reporting their findings in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Sukanya Chakrabarti ...
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has zoomed into the Helix Nebula to give an up-close view of the possible eventual fate of our own sun and planetary system. In Webb's high-resolution look, the structure of the gas being ...
Astronomy
Jan 20, 2026
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