Metal-poor stars are more life-friendly, suggests study

Stars that contain comparatively large amounts of heavy elements provide less favorable conditions for the emergence of complex life than metal-poor stars, as scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Solar System Research ...

Why do some galaxies stop making new stars?

Galaxies are star-making machines, churning out new stars fuelled by cold gas collapsing under the force of gravity. Some galaxies can produce hundreds of new stars in a single year, and individual galaxies can contain many ...

Smaller stars pack big X-ray punch for would-be planets

Young stars much less massive than the Sun can unleash a torrent of X-ray radiation that can significantly shorten the lifetime of planet-forming disks surrounding these stars. This result comes from a new study of a group ...

A wandering star disrupts the stellar nursery

From a zoomed out, distant view, star-forming cloud L483 appears normal. But when a Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists zoomed in closer and closer, things became weirder and weirder.

Young sun's violent history solves meteorite mystery

(Phys.org) —Astronomers using ESA's Herschel space observatory to probe the turbulent beginnings of a Sun-like star have found evidence of mighty stellar winds that could solve a puzzling meteorite mystery in our own back ...

A grand extravaganza of new stars

This dramatic landscape in the southern constellation of Ara (The Altar) is a treasure trove of celestial objects. Star clusters, emission nebulae and active star-forming regions are just some of the riches observed in this ...

Image: NGC 6872 in the constellation of Pavo

This picture, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), shows a galaxy known as NGC 6872 in the constellation of Pavo (The Peacock). Its unusual shape is caused by its interactions ...

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