Scientists map gusty winds in a far-off neutron star system

An accretion disk is a colossal whirlpool of gas and dust that gathers around a black hole or a neutron star like cotton candy as it pulls in material from a nearby star. As the disk spins, it whips up powerful winds that ...

Gaia discovers a new family of black holes

Using data from ESA's Gaia mission, astronomers have discovered not only the closest but also the second closest black hole to Earth. The black holes, Gaia BH1 and Gaia BH2, are respectively located just 1,560 light-years ...

Astronomers discover helium-burning white dwarf

A white dwarf star can explode as a supernova when its mass exceeds the limit of about 1.4 solar masses. A team led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching and involving the University of ...

A new mission will search for habitable planets at Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor, a binary star system located just 4.376 light-years away. Despite its proximity, repeated astronomical surveys have failed to find hard evidence of extrasolar planets in this ...

Observations inspect X-ray radiation from Vela X-1

Using the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), an international team of astronomers has conducted X-ray polarimetric observations of an accreting X-ray pulsar known as Vela X-1. Results of the observational campaign, ...

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