A team of astronomers including Harvard's Robert Kirshner and Peter Challis has detected a flash of light from the companion to an exploding star. This is the first time astronomers have witnessed the impact of an exploding ...
Astronomy
Mar 22, 2016
1
1217
When we look at the night sky, we see stars as tiny points of light eking out a solitary existence at immense distances from Earth. But appearances are deceptive. More than half the stars we know of have a companion, a second ...
Astronomy
Feb 4, 2016
0
13
One of the most recognizable constellations in the sky is Orion, the Hunter. Among Orion's best-known features is the "belt," consisting of three bright stars in a line, each of which can be seen without a telescope.
Astronomy
Nov 12, 2015
0
1966
On 15 June 2015, V404 Cygni (V404 Cyg), a binary system comprising a sun-like star orbiting a black hole, woke up. A huge outburst of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum 'lit up' the sky. The last such outburst was ...
Astronomy
Nov 5, 2015
2
398
Neutron stars are arguably the most exotic objects in the universe. Like one of those annoying friends who seemingly must overachieve in every aspect of life, neutron stars exceed in almost every category: surface gravity; ...
Astronomy
Sep 1, 2015
2
58
A fast-moving pulsar appears to have punched a hole in a disk of gas around its companion star and launched a fragment of the disk outward at a speed of about 4 million miles per hour. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is ...
Astronomy
Jul 22, 2015
4
1565
An international team of researchers, with the assistance of amateur astronomers, have discovered a unique binary star system: the first known such system where one star completely eclipses the other. It is a type of two-star ...
Astronomy
Jul 16, 2015
18
4655
Using the robotic Liverpool Telescope, an international team of scientists has found what looks like the best pre-explosion candidate yet for a 'type 1a' supernova, where a massive and extremely dense star in the Andromeda ...
Astronomy
Jul 9, 2015
0
54
Some of the sharpest images ever made with ESO's Very Large Telescope have, for the first time, revealed what appears to be an ageing star giving birth to a butterfly-like planetary nebula. These observations of the red giant ...
Astronomy
Jun 10, 2015
116
331
When we look up at the night sky, it's easy to feel as though the stars we see have always been, and always will be, there. But just like ourselves, stars are born and die.
Astronomy
May 22, 2015
0
46
