Topic: Stars & Nebulae
Black Hole & Baby Star Formation – It’s the Same Science

Black Hole & Baby Star Formation – It’s the Same Science

One of the great rules of astronomy is that the same rules of physics we see here, in our corner of the universe are the same rules of physics that control all of space and time. Mostly… some forces only work on tiny scales, so at the atomic level it feels like things I working different. In the very first tiniest fraction of a second, the forces were one force, but they split apart faster than an atom can oscillate. In general, it's the same physics all the way out. And this leads to some really cool realities. Consider for a moment the modest ball of incandescent gas that is a star. As...

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Neutron Stars Have Quarky Cores

Neutron Stars Have Quarky Cores

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

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

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

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

 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...

New Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient

New Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient

Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick/M. Zamani To me it feels like our biggest unknowns are often part of the high-energy universe - those processes and objects rise to the highest temperatures and give off the bluest of light.  As an example, back in 2018, researchers...