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.
A new study suggests that some of the heaviest rocky planets ever reported may not be as heavy as they look. These so-called 'mega-Earths,' rocky planets weighing more than about 10 Earths, could be an illusion created by ...
A new study led by researchers at the Konkoly Observatory of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences (HUN-REN CSFK) in Budapest has revealed what makes a distant red giant star the most explosively active ...
Astronomy
Oct 21, 2026
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Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, the extremely dense cores left behind when massive stars explode. Astrophysicists have recently observed a pulsar rotating over 300 times per second that appeared to be slowing ...
Using more than 15 years of observations from the Parkes radio telescope, astronomers detected three rotational glitches in the pulsar PSR J1637−4642—a young neutron star that had shown no signs of glitches since its discovery. ...
Since we cannot look into the interiors of stars and planets, we rely on lab experiments to replicate the physical processes that occur there. Led by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), an international research ...
Astronomy
Aug 26, 2026
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At the center of most galaxies lies a supermassive black hole, with a mass millions to billions of times that of our sun and some of the most extreme gravity in the universe.
Astronomy
Aug 21, 2026
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Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) is a partner, have captured the first direct, high-resolution ...
Astronomy
Aug 11, 2026
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One of the challenges of searching for technosignatures (i.e., signs that intelligent life somewhere in the universe has created technology) is understanding what to look for. Technology is a very broad area, and different ...
Astronomy
Jul 27, 2026
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Researchers are closer to unraveling a longstanding solar mystery surrounding the extreme thinness of the sun's tachocline layer of strong shearing motion—a region believed to be critical for creating the violent eruptions ...
Astronomy
Jul 8, 2026
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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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