Topic: Stars & Nebulae
A Star’s Death in Three Acts

A Star’s Death in Three Acts

by | Sep 4, 2024 |

While monitoring the sky with optical systems, we’ve found some really weird stuff. Back in 2018, the All Sky Automated Survey for Super Novae discovered a brightening galaxy. Follow -up observations in the X-Ray found the kinds of high energy light that signals a black hole is tearing apart and feeding on a star. When the light faded away, it was assumed the star was gone and the excitement was over, but… it returned about 1200 days later. This second flare wasn’t as impressive as the first, but it was enough to let researchers calculate the shredded stars orbit and predict when what ever...

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Neutron Stars Have Quarky Cores

Neutron Stars Have Quarky Cores

by | Dec 27, 2023 |

Artist’s impression of the different layers inside a massive neutron star, with the red circle representing a sizable quark-matter core. Credit: Jyrki Hokkanen, CSC Ok, hold onto your brains; things are about to get dense around here. Our universe’s most massive stars...

Finding the Source of Low-Hydrogen Supernovae

Finding the Source of Low-Hydrogen Supernovae

by | Dec 20, 2023 |

Visualization of a binary star experiencing mass transfer. Credit: Ylva Götberg One factor upping the difficulty of understanding our universe is… the complexity of our universe. It sometimes feels like every time we think we’re getting a handle on how things work,...

500,000 Stars, with More Born Regularly

500,000 Stars, with More Born Regularly

by | Dec 6, 2023 |

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and S. Crowe (University of Virginia) Our Solar System lives in a nice suburb of the Milky Way. Sitting about 25,000 light years from the galactic center, we’re in a good place to view what’s happening in the core district, but far...

Eta Carina gives up 260year Secret to Chandra

Eta Carina gives up 260year Secret to Chandra

by | Oct 25, 2023 |

Credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/GSFC/M. Corcoran et al.; Image Processing: L. Frattare, J. Major, N. Wolk (SAO/CXC) Astronomers kind of live to see weird weird objects. While likely always visible to humans, this southern hemisphere star transformed from kind of meh to the...

Pulsar releases highest measured Gamma rays

Pulsar releases highest measured Gamma rays

by | Oct 25, 2023 |

 Credit: Science Communication Lab for DESY Ultimately, our universe is far more diverse in its reality than humans tend to be in our theorizing. Over and over, we have found remarkable things just by turning a new instrument skyward. From the discovery of cold...