astronomy
-
Supposedly Dead ‘Tasmanian Devil’ Star Unexpectedly Whirls Back to Life
On September 7, 2022, the Zwicky Transient Facility detected a new transient object in deep space, about one billion light-years from Earth. The object was very bright, and now, a team of astronomers believes it’s a star that’s come back from the dead. The object was a star: a luminous fast blue optical transient, or…
-
Gravitational Waves Might Be Generated by the Debris Fields of Dying Stars
A team of astrophysicists has determined through simulations that the debris shed by dying stars may be a source of gravitational waves — those ripples in spacetime predicted by Einstein over a century ago.
-
Webb Telescope Spots Potential Fuel for Early Universe in Supernovae Debris
Two supernovae 22 million light-years away ejected dust into their region of the universe, Webb Space Telescope observations reveal, indicating that violent stellar deaths could give rise to new star systems. Supernovae are luminous stellar deaths; when some stars die, they explode outwards, spewing their material across the cosmos. The supernovae currently in question are…
-
No, Betelgeuse Won’t Go Supernova in ‘Tens of Years’ — or Even Centuries
The expiration date of Betelgeuse, a massive dying star about 642 light-years from Earth, is a hot topic in astronomy because of the star’s superlative size and its life cycle stage.