Stellar evolution as a research area investigates the physical processes governing the formation, structural changes, and end states of stars across cosmic time, using stellar structure theory, nuclear astrophysics, hydrodynamics, and radiative transfer. It encompasses modeling of protostellar collapse, main-sequence hydrogen burning, post–main-sequence shell burning, and advanced nucleosynthesis up to core collapse or thermonuclear disruption, as well as mass loss, rotation, magnetic fields, and binary interactions. The field integrates observations (e.g., HR diagrams, asteroseismology, stellar populations) with numerical simulations to constrain stellar lifetimes, remnant formation (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes), and the chemical and energetic feedback of stars into galaxies.
When massive stars die, they unleash some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Yet not all supernovae are created equal. Some continue to shine brightly for months or even years as their expanding debris crashes ...
Astronomy
Jul 6, 2026
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When astronomers discovered a giant planet orbiting a dead star in 2020, they wondered how it survived its star's violent demise. Now, observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may finally explain the planet's ...
Astronomy
Jul 1, 2026
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Need some good news on a Friday after a long week? The Earth may not be engulfed by the expanding fireball of the dying sun, which has long been assumed to be our home planet's ultimate fate, according to scientists.
Planetary Sciences
Jun 19, 2026
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298
When stars like our sun age, they puff up into red giants. Their bubbling outer mass gradually escapes into space, and their remaining cores contract into white dwarfs. Since most stars end their lives this way, the universe ...
Astronomy
Jun 15, 2026
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A team of astronomers, led by Brooke Kotten of the University of Michigan, has shown that TOI-5882—a sunlike star located some 1,300 light-years away—has likely eaten one of its planets.
Astronomy
Jun 15, 2026
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Once charted as a 'guest star' in ancient China, dreaded as a harbinger of ill omens in medieval Europe, and preserved in the narratives and artworks of Indigenous cultures, these cosmic spectacles are now known as core-collapse ...
Astronomy
Jun 12, 2026
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There's a question at the heart of SETI that doesn't get nearly enough attention. It isn't whether aliens exist, and it isn't whether we have the technology to detect them. It's a far more practical problem: With a billion ...
Astrobiology
Jun 10, 2026
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We don't know whether theorized primordial black holes (PBH) are real. If they are, they formed in the very early universe, when physics was much different. They had no stellar progenitors and were created by the direct collapse ...
Astronomy
Jun 8, 2026
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114
A new theoretical study may have cracked one of the most puzzling discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): Little Red Dots, spotted across the early universe. The paper, posted to the arXiv preprint server on ...
Astronomers have investigated a puzzling binary star system in which two stars that may have formed together now show dramatically different chemical compositions. The new study, uploaded to the arXiv preprint server on May ...
