Tag: astronomy
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Cannibal binary star could explain mysterious nova-like outbursts
A mystery: an unknown star, too faint to notice, suddenly expanded to a huge size, increasing in brightness to become one of the most luminous stars known. This star doesn’t even have a real name, just a “license plate” catalog number: V838 Monocerotis, indicating that it’s a not very important star in the constellation the…
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Alpha Centauri harbors an Earth-mass planet
Every exoplanet discovery seems to bring us closer to understanding the variety of planetary systems out there in our galaxy. The latest find is particularly exciting: an Earth-mass planet orbiting around Alpha Centauri B, one of three stars in the closest system to the Solar System. The planet isn’t very Earthlike in most respects, but…
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The beautiful spiral of a dying star
Though it may seem sad on the surface, the death of a star is a beautiful thing—and an important precursor to the birth of new stars and planets. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile has provided a breathtaking view of a star nearing the end of its life. One unexpected feature was a…
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Spinning pulsar, got to slow down
(This headline was my original choice for the article, which was understandably rejected by my editors. So, you get to read it here instead.) Pulsars are rapidly-spinning neutron stars, the very small dense remnants of stars at least 8 times more massive than the Sun. Their pulses are intense beams of light that sweep across…
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High-resolution image of supermassive black hole shows engine of destruction
A collection of four big telescopes in Arizona, California, and Hawaii have banded together to examine one of the biggest black holes we know: the beast at the heart of the galaxy M87. What they found: the disk of gas driving M87’s huge jet rotates the same direction as the black hole that made it.…
Bowler Hat Science 