The expanding shell of gas and dust that surrounds the star is about five light-years wide, which equals the distance from here to the nearest star beyond the Sun, Proxima Centauri.
Astronomy
Apr 23, 2021
3
1210
Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered the absence of an unstable massive star in a dwarf galaxy. Scientists think this could indicate that the star became less bright ...
Astronomy
Jun 30, 2020
25
4341
The interiors of stars are largely mysterious regions because they are so difficult to observe directly. Our lack of understanding about the physical processes there, like rotation and the mixing of hot gas, introduces considerable ...
Astronomy
Jan 13, 2020
2
227
The Milky Way galaxy's disk of stars is anything but stable and flat. Instead, it becomes increasingly warped and twisted far away from the Milky Way's center, according to astronomers from National Astronomical Observatories ...
Astronomy
Feb 4, 2019
51
2072
This festive NASA Hubble Space Telescope image resembles a holiday wreath made of sparkling lights. The bright southern hemisphere star RS Puppis, at the center of the image, is swaddled in a gossamer cocoon of reflective ...
Astronomy
Dec 21, 2018
0
364
Cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) are white dwarf stars that are accreting from an orbiting, low mass binary companion star. The accretion is facilitated by the proximity of the stars; typical orbital periods range from about ...
Astronomy
Apr 9, 2018
0
165
The Seven Sisters, as they were known to the ancient Greeks, are now known to modern astronomers as the Pleiades star cluster – a set of stars which are visible to the naked eye and have been studied for thousands of years ...
Astronomy
Aug 25, 2017
0
766
A surprising new class of X-ray pulsating variable stars has been discovered by a team of American and Canadian astronomers led by Villanova University's Scott Engle and Edward Guinan. Part of the Villanova Secret Lives ...
Astronomy
Mar 24, 2017
0
62
This 10.5-billion-year-old globular cluster, NGC 6496, is home to heavy-metal stars of a celestial kind! The stars comprising this spectacular spherical cluster are enriched with much higher proportions of metals—elements ...
Astronomy
Jun 6, 2016
1
41
Astronomers using the VISTA telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory have discovered a previously unknown component of the Milky Way. By mapping out the locations of a class of stars that vary in brightness called Cepheids, ...
Astronomy
Oct 28, 2015
23
146
