View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Paolo Palma in Naples, Italy, created this composite of star colors with images of individual stars taken over the course of 2 years, which he calls Kaleidocosmo. He captured all the stars he could see from Naples – up to +5 magnitude and brighter – some 1,250 stars! Then, … Read more
Astronomers have been forced to reassess the origins of mysterious, rapid radio wave blasts called “fast radio bursts” (FRBs). This rethink was brought about by an FRB first detected last year, which has been traced back to the “cosmic graveyard” of a massive “dead” galaxy filled with ancient stars located 2 billion light-years from Earth. … Read more
Stars form in Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs), vast clouds of mostly hydrogen that can span tens of light years. These stellar nurseries can form thousands of stars. Astronomers know this because they observe these regions in the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds and watch as stars take shape. But the Universe is more than … Read more
There are a lot of ways for dead stars to blow their tops. Astronomers discovered this explosive diversity when they assessed 3,628 exploding white dwarfs during a next-generation sky survey conducted using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) between March 2018 and December 2020. That means that this dataset of nearby supernovas is several times larger … Read more
Using 16 years of data from NASA’s gamma-ray detecting Fermi spacecraft, astronomers have discovered that “microquasars,” systems in which a black hole is slowly devouring a star, may be small, but they pack one heck of a punch. Despite their diminutive nature, this research suggests even microquasars snacking on small stars can have an impressive … Read more
If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, Shaula and Lesath will come over your southeastern horizon before dawn sometime this month. They’re a hopeful sign that spring is coming. How do you recognize the coming of spring? Maybe you spot a first returning robin. Or tune into news about a groundhog looking for its shadow. For … Read more
The Phoenix Cluster is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known. Astronomers have identified 42 member galaxies so far, yet there could be as many as 1,000 in the cluster. Because of its size and its age, it should be finished with the vigorous star formation characteristic of young galaxies. But it’s not. Star … Read more
How do you cool down a phoenix? I don’t mean the mythological birds of flame and rebirth, but rather a cosmic namesake with a fittingly fiery nature. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers may finally have the answer. They used the powerful instrument to investigate the extreme cooling of gas in the Phoenix … Read more
Planet formation around low-mass stars may be suffering from Peter Pan syndrome. While previous observations and models have suggested that a disk of planetary building blocks should be ‘fully grown’ – having burned through its world-making material – in about 10 million years, a new kid on the block is proving them wrong, weighing in … Read more
When massive stars reach the end of their life cycle, they undergo gravitational collapse and shed their outer layers in a massive explosion (a supernova). Whereas particularly massive stars will leave a black hole in their wake, others leave behind a stellar remnant known as a neutron star (or white dwarf). These objects concentrate a … Read more