Youngest Exploding Star Discovered Posted: 4 months ago by AutumnLotus
About 140 years ago, our time, a stellar explosion lit up our galaxy with a blinding flash of light, sending out powerful shock waves to boot. Now, astronomers have spotted the youthful remains from the explosion.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 324 [+].
Astronomers Spot Exploding Faraway Star Posted: 1 year ago by AutumnLotus
A massive exploding faraway star _ the brightest supernova astronomers have ever seen _ has scientists wondering whether a similar celestial fireworks show may light up the sky much closer to Earth sometime soon.
Comments: 2 Score: [-] 50 [+].
An Oxygen Factory in a Nearby Galaxy Posted: 6 months ago by AutumnLotus
This Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows the debris of a massive star explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy about 160,000 light years from Earth. The supernova remnant (SNR) shown here, N132D, is the brightest in the Magellanic clouds, and belongs to a rare class of oxygen-rich remnants. Most of the oxygen that we breathe on Earth is thought to have come from explosions similar to this one.
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Star eats star and builds planets from the crumbs Posted: 7 months ago by AutumnLotus
An unusual star may have swallowed its stellar companion and burped out a planet-forming cloud as a result, a new study reports. The star, called BP Piscium, is surrounded by a thick disc of gas and dust from which it appears to be sucking up new material at a prodigious rate.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 261 [+].
Is this the brightest star in the galaxy? Celestial body blazes with light of 3.2million suns Posted: 1 month ago by AutumnLotus
Astronomers believe they may have discovered the brightest star in the Milky Way amid a swirling cloud of colourful stellar dust.
Nicknamed the 'Peony nebula star', the celestial body blazes with the light of 3.2million suns in the centre of our galaxy.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 196 [+].
Tiny Star Unleashes Huge Explosion Posted: 3 months ago by AutumnLotus
A tiny star recently unleashed what is considered the brightest burst of light ever seen in the universe from a normal star. Shining with only 1 percent of the sun's light and boasting just a third of the sun's mass, this run-of-the-mill star previously was nothing to write home about.
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Exploding star in NGC 2397 Posted: 5 months ago by AutumnLotus
The latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a sharp view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2397. This image also shows a rare Hubble view of the early stages of a supernova - SN 2006bc, discovered in March 2006.
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'Solar Flare' Detected From Star 150 Light Years Away Posted: 8 months ago by AutumnLotus
Using observations from ESO's VLT, astronomers were able for the first time to reconstruct the site of a flare on a solar-like star located 150 light years away. The study of this young star, nicknamed 'Speedy Mic' because of its fast rotation, will help scientists better understand the youth of our Sun.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 176 [+].
Dust Strangely Vaporized by Stellar Explosion Posted: 7 months ago by AutumnLotus
Explosions of small stars, long thought to create stellar dust, actually sweep dust away, scientists discovered. For years, researchers have observed swirling dust clouds around systems called recurring novas, which periodically explode. New images of a distant nova have now overturned astronomers' long-standing assumption that the dust originates in the blasts.
Comments: 1 Score: [-] 260 [+].
Astronomers Find New Star 'Family' Posted: 1 year ago by AutumnLotus
Astronomers have spotted a small group of young stellar "siblings" in a dusty stellar nursery 848 light-years away.
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AKARI captures birth of cosmic dust from supernova explosion Posted: 5 months ago by AutumnLotus
Detailed images of the birth of cosmic dust were captured for the first time. A star that is about to die after a supernova explosion expels materials like cosmic dust into space, which will be the raw materials for planets and other life.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 258 [+].
Powerful Explosions Suggest Neutron Star Missing Link Posted: 6 months ago by AutumnLotus
Observations from NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) have revealed that the youngest known pulsing neutron star has thrown a temper tantrum. The collapsed star occasionally unleashes powerful bursts of X-rays, which are forcing astronomers to rethink the life cycle of neutron stars.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 250 [+].
Black Hole Rips Apart Screaming Star Posted: 4 months ago by AutumnLotus
In a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a massive central black hole strays too close to the insatiable giant and is torn apart. But before it can be devoured, the star lets out one last scream in a flare of light that slowly echoes across the galaxy. Astronomers on Earth pick up this faint call and use it to map the nucleus of the galaxy from which it emanated.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 286 [+].
Mystery Probed in Record-Setting Cosmic Explosion Posted: 10 months ago by AutumnLotus
Last September, a supernova burst into a cosmic flame 100 times more intense than any event on record—and left scientists scratching their heads. Now, two new studies attempt to explain the remarkable explosion. One sets up the explosion with a cannibalistic star, while the other describes how colliding layers of jettisoned gas could outshine all other supernovae.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 177 [+].
New Risk to Earth Found in Supernova Explosions Posted: 8 months ago by AutumnLotus
An explosive star within our galaxy is showing signs of an impending eruption, at least in a cosmic time frame, and has for quite some time. From 1838 to 1858, the star called Eta Carinae brightened to rival the light of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and then faded to a dim star. Since 1940 it has been brightening again, and scientists think Eta Carinae will detonate in 10,000 to 20,000 years.
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The drifting star: Astronomers 'listen' to an exoplanet-host star and find its birthplace Posted: 4 months ago by AutumnLotus
By studying in great detail the 'ringing' of a planet-harbouring star, a team of astronomers using ESO's 3.6-m telescope have shown that it must have drifted away from the metal-rich Hyades cluster. This discovery has implications for theories of star and planet formation, and for the dynamics of our Milky Way.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 354 [+].
Swift and Gemini probe mysterious explosion in the distant past Posted: 8 months ago by AutumnLotus
Using the powerful one-two combo of NASA’s Swift satellite and the Gemini Observatory, astronomers have detected a mysterious type of cosmic explosion farther back in time than ever before. The explosion, known as a short gamma-ray burst (GRB), took place 7.4 billion years ago, more than halfway back to the Big Bang.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 232 [+].
New View of Distant Galaxy Reveals Furious Star Formation Posted: 8 months ago by AutumnLotus
A furious rate of star formation discovered in a distant galaxy shows that galaxies in the early universe developed either much faster or in a different way from what astronomers have thought. The galaxy is forming the equivalent of 4,000 Suns a year. This is a thousand times more violent than our own Milky Way galaxy.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 200 [+].
Sun-like star flips its magnetic field Posted: 6 months ago by AutumnLotus
An international group of astronomers reported today that they have discovered that the Sun-like star tau Bootis flipped its magnetic field from north to south sometime during the last year. It has been known for many years that the Sun's magnetic field changes its direction every 11 years, but this is this is the first time that such a change has been observed in another star.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 330 [+].
Star Explosion Highlights "Purple Rose of Virgo" Posted: 1 year ago by niceplime
Star Explosion in it's beauty
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The Last Confessions of a Dying Star Posted: 6 months ago by AutumnLotus
Probing a glowing bubble of gas and dust encircling a dying star, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a wealth of previously unseen structures. The object, called NGC 2371, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a Sun-like star. The remnant star visible at the center of NGC 2371 is the super-hot core of the former red giant, now stripped of its outer layers.
Comments: 0 Score: [-] 190 [+].