The space weather forecast for Proxima Centauri B

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Earth (only 4.28 light-years away) is getting a lot of attention these days. It hosts a planet, Proxima Cen b, whose mass is about 1.3 Earth-mass (though it could be larger, depending ...

Solar-like oscillations in other stars

Our sun vibrates due to pressure waves generated by turbulence in its upper layers (the layers dominated by convective gas motions). Helioseismology is the name given to the study of these oscillations, which can shed light ...

What happens when black holes collide?

The sign of a truly great scientific theory is by the outcomes it predicts when you run experiments or perform observations. And one of the greatest theories ever proposed was the concept of Relativity, described by Albert ...

Orphaned protostars

Stars form as gravity contracts the gas and dust in an interstellar cloud until clumps develop that are dense enough to coalesce into stars. Precisely how this happens, however, is very uncertain, and the processes are hard ...

Where is the closest black hole?

You know that saying, "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer?" That advice needs to go right out the window when we're talking black holes. They're the worst enemies you could have and you want them as far ...

Astronomer detects a new source of intense gamma radiation

Analyzing the data collected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Maxim Pshirkov of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute discovered a new source confirming that binary systems with strong colliding stellar winds comprise ...

Astronomers identify a new mid-size black hole

Nearly all black holes come in one of two sizes: stellar mass black holes that weigh up to a few dozen times the mass of our sun or supermassive black holes ranging from a million to several billion times the sun's mass. ...

Image: Star factory NGC 7538

(Phys.org) —The billowing clouds portrayed in this image from ESA's Herschel observatory are part of NGC 7538, a stellar nursery for massive stars. Located around 9000 light-years away, this is one of the few regions of ...

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