Tagged: stars

Pow! Scientists spot new ‘micronova’ stellar explosion

An international team of astronomers has observed and identified a new type of stellar explosion — a micronova. Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), the researchers witnessed never-before-seen small thermonuclear explosions on white dwarf stars that lasted only a matter of...

A Dyson Sphere Harvests The Energy Of Stars

Earth’s biggest construction project What if humans could harness all the sun’s energy? What if extraterrestrial civilizations have already learned to harvest the energy of stars? In 1960, physicist and astronomer Freeman J. Dyson proposed to use orbiting solar collectors to accomplish this mind-boggling feat....

Boiling ‘baby bubble’ where stars are born comes into view

A dramatic new image of a cosmic gas bubble reveals never-before-seen details of this birthplace of stars. The bubble surrounds the Westerlund 2 star cluster, one of the brightest star-forming regions in the Milky Way. Westerlund 2 is about 20,000 light-years from Earth, and it...

Teardrop star reveals hidden supernova doom

Astronomers have made the rare sighting of two stars spiraling to their doom by spotting the tell-tale signs of a teardrop-shaped star. The tragic shape is caused by a massive nearby white dwarf distorting the star with its intense gravity, which will also be the...

Theia 456 Is A Stretched-Out Stream Of Sibling Stars

Astronomers have identified many more or less spherical clumps of stars born together and still traveling together through space. We call them open star clusters; many are well known as beautiful places in the sky to see through binoculars or a small telescope. On January...

City-size neutron stars may actually be bigger than we thought

What does a lead nucleus and a neutron star have in common? Scientists have made new estimates of the size of mysterious neutron stars, revealing that the ultradense stellar corpses are slightly larger than previously thought. According to the new estimates, published April 27 in...