Stellar rotation as a research area investigates the angular momentum content and evolution of stars, its observational diagnostics, and its impact on stellar structure and environments. It encompasses measurement techniques such as line broadening, rotational modulation of photometric and spectroscopic signals, and asteroseismology, as well as modeling of internal differential rotation, angular momentum transport, and magnetic braking. The field examines rotation’s role in dynamo-driven magnetic activity, mass loss, mixing of chemical elements, and evolutionary pathways from pre-main-sequence phases to compact remnants, with implications for stellar populations, gyrochronology, and progenitors of phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts and gravitational-wave sources.
When you look up at the sky on a sunny day, the sun might seem like a bright spot, unchanging in the sky. But the sun is a complex, dynamic celestial body, wrapped in electrical currents and magnetic fields that constantly ...
Astronomy
May 24, 2026
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Our sun is a bit of an outlier in the general stellar population. We typically think of stars as being solitary wanderers throughout the galaxy. But roughly half of sun-like stars are locked in with more than one companion ...
Astronomy
May 1, 2026
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From birth to death, stars generally slow by 100 to 1,000 times their initial rotation rates; in other words, they "spin down." The sun's total angular momentum has declined as material is gradually blown off at the surface ...
Astronomy
Apr 27, 2026
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An international team led by Dr. Indrani Das of Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) has shown, for the first time, how infalling gas from star-forming cores gradually transitions into planet-forming ...
Astronomy
Apr 15, 2026
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Scientists have found that young stellar cousins of our sun are calming down and dimming more quickly in their X-ray output than previously thought, according to a new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. A paper ...
Astrobiology
Apr 14, 2026
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How does a star affect the makeup of its planets? And what does this mean for the habitability of distant worlds? Carnegie's Luke Bouma is exploring a new way to probe this critical question—using naturally occurring space ...
Astrobiology
Mar 30, 2026
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Every eleven years, the sun's magnetic field flips. Sunspots—dark, cooler regions on the sun's surface that mark intense magnetic activity and often trigger solar eruptions—appear at mid-latitudes and migrate toward the star's ...
Astronomy
Mar 17, 2026
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Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have conducted the most detailed simulation of the interior of stars and disproved a theory scientists have believed for 45 years: that stars switch their rotation patterns as they ...
Astronomy
Mar 6, 2026
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Advances in supercomputing have made solving a long‐standing astronomical conundrum possible: How can we explain the changes in the chemical composition at the surface of red giant stars as they evolve?
Astronomy
Feb 20, 2026
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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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