Stars

Latest about Stars

Gamma ray bursts happen when neutron stars collide or when giant stars explode into black holes, releasing jets of super-energetic photons that look like a narrow beam of a flashlight.

Exploding stars send out powerful bursts of energy − I'm leading a citizen scientist project to classify and learn about these bright flashes

By Amy Lien published

Swift is a multiwavelength space telescope that scientists are using to find out more about these mysterious gamma-ray flashes from the universe.

Stars
A glowing red orb is seen on the verge of exploding out a flare.

Stellar detectives find suspect for incredibly powerful 'superflares'

By Robert Lea published

Some stars erupt with 'superflares' 10,000 times as powerful as solar flares from the sun. A team of "stellar detectives" are on the case and may now know why some stars are so violent.

Stars
A white orb is seen with loopy lines trailing around it.

Giant gamma-ray flare from 'recently deceased' magnetar lights up Cigar Galaxy

By Robert Lea published

Astronomers have discovered a flare erupting from a highly magnetic "dead star" outside the solar system for the first time. The magnetar flare lit up the entire Cigar Galaxy in gamma rays.

Stars
Thousands of glowing white and blue stars with a denser cluster towards the center of the image.

What are globular clusters?

By Conor Feehly last updated

Reference Globular clusters are densely packed, spherical collections of ancient stars. Here we explore them in more detail.

Reference
A hazy view of space with oranges, reds and grays. There are a few sparkling stars speckled in the scene.

These 3 stars are losing weight fast — thanks to stellar winds way stronger than the sun's

By Robert Lea published

"Our estimated mass-loss rates can be used as a benchmark for stellar wind models and expand our limited observational evidence for the winds of sun-like stars."

Stars
An artist's impression of an erupting magnetar

One of the universe's most 'extreme' dead stars just sprang back to life unexpectedly

By Robert Lea published

The closest extreme magnetic dead star or magnetar to Earth suddenly burst back to life to give astronomers a sight of unexpected and unexplained phenomena that are unlike anything seen before.

Stars
Light blue, nearly transparent, lines are seen almost tangled on the left side of the image. They go through the dark part of a horizontal disk on the screen. To the right of this disk there's a bit of glowing orange light.

Achoo! Baby star 'sneezes' tell astronomers a lot about their development

By Robert Lea published

Achoo! Baby stars "sneeze" to rid themselves of excess energy during their formation process, astronomers using the ALMA telescope array have found.

Stars
An image of the bipolar nebula NGC 6164/6165, which hosts the magnetic binary star system HD 148937. The image was taken by the VLT Survey Telescope in Chile.

Monster star gains magnetic personality following stellar merger

By Keith Cooper published

A rare massive star possessing a magnetic field could have produced its dynamo after merging with another star.

Stars
six images of different galaxies

Stars make a bigger mess in old galaxies, and scientists just figured out why

By Keith Cooper published

More evolved galaxies demonstrate a greater range of stellar motions compared to the orderly, circular orbits of stars like our sun in the Milky Way.

Stars
a small, bright blue central dot erupts with rays of brilliant pink and yellow-green, with shining stars dispersed within as well as around in the black of space.

Peer inside remnants of an 800-year-old supernova and see a 'zombie' star

By Stefanie Waldek published

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory images the firework-like remnants of the great supernova of 1181.

Stars
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