Latest Star Stories
Astronomers are getting to know the neighbors better. Our sun resides within a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy about two-thirds of the way out from the center. It lives in a fairly calm, suburb-like area with an average number of stellar residents. Recently, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has been turning up a new crowd of stars close to home: the coldest of the brown dwarf family of "failed" stars. Now, just as scientists are "meeting and greeting" the new...
Giant bubbles, towering pillars and cascading clouds of dust and gas fill the star-forming nursery of the Carina Nebula seen here in a stunning new view from Herschel. The Carina Nebula is some 7500 lightyears from Earth and hosts some of the most massive and luminous stars in our Galaxy, including double-star system eta Carinae, which boasts over 100 times the mass of our Sun. The total amount of gas and dust traced by ESA’s Herschel space observatory in this image is equivalent to...
Unfortunately, stars don't have birth certificates. So, astronomers have a tough time figuring out their ages. Knowing a star's age is critical for understanding how our Milky Way galaxy built itself up over billions of years from smaller galaxies. Jason Kalirai of the Space Telescope Science Institute and The Johns Hopkins University's Center for Astrophysical Sciences, both in Baltimore, Md., has found the next best thing to a star's birth certificate. Using a new technique, Kalirai...
New research shows that other sun-like stars in the universe can send off flares much larger than those seen on our sun. Solar flares are the result of broken magnetic-field loops as they pass through sunspots. As these loops become twisted and contorted, the flares occur, sending enormous amounts of charged particles, energy and radiation outward. So far, the largest solar flare ever measured on our sun happened on September 1, 1859, by British astronomer Richard Carrington. He simply...
Researchers working at the University of Bonn in Germany have used computer simulations to discover the first evidence that the way in which stars form depends upon the conditions of their birth environments, claims a new study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In a Friday statement, the Society said that the properties of stars, which are believed to form in interstellar space from gas and dust clouds, are dependent upon the surrounding conditions...
An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has a temperature of just 400 degrees Celsius and its discovery could be a key step forward in helping astronomers distinguish between brown dwarfs and giant planets. The researchers publish their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Brown dwarfs are star-like objects...
NEW YORK, May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Every summer, millions of kids suffer brain-drain and lose up to three months of math and reading skills gains they had achieved during the school year. This loss of skills, known as the "summer slide," affects all children who don't practice their math and reading skills during the summer months, and it can result in a lot of time wasted on reviewing last year's lessons when kids go back to school. (Logo:...
NEW YORK, May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- David J. Pecker, Chairman, President and CEO of American Media, Inc. (AMI), today announced the appointment of Deborah J. Mignucci as Publisher of Fit Pregnancy, AMI's bi-monthly magazine that is the first and most trusted source of information for today's active pregnant woman and new mother, and as Associate Publisher of SHAPE, AMI's monthly magazine that is the "how to look and feel amazing" resource of active, confident women. Mignucci...
WASHINGTON, May 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Herschel Space Observatory has shown galaxies with the most powerful, active black holes at their cores produce fewer stars than galaxies with less active black holes. The results are the first to demonstrate black holes suppressed galactic star formation when the universe was less than half its current age. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Herschel is a European Space Agency-led mission with...
MIAMI, May 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The eyes of the soccer world will focus on South Florida again this summer when two of Europe's most storied clubs, England's Chelsea FC and Italy's AC Milan, face-off at Sun Life Stadium at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 28 as part of the World Football Challenge. The announcement was made by RSE Ventures, in partnership with CAA Sports, a division of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), the world's leading entertainment and sports agency, and Major League...
Latest Star Reference Libraries
The prominent feature that allows for the existence of life on Earth is the Sun. Radiation from our closest star provides heat and energy to our planet, driving biological processes and providing the necessary conditions for liquid water to naturally exist. But our Sun is only but one star in this vast Universe. And as it turns out, most stars are quite different than the one that illuminates our day. For this reason, scientists have, for hundreds of years, attempted to study the other...
UV Astronomy -- UV astronomy is the branch of astronomy and astrophysics which deals with objects visible in ultraviolet (UV) radiation. UV radiation ranges approximatively from 10nm (extreme UV) to 380nm (near UV). Ultraviolet line spectrum measurements are used to discern the chemical composition, densities, and temperatures of interstellar medium, and the temperature and composition of hot young stars. UV observations can also provide essential information about the evolution of...
Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram -- In stellar astronomy, the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (H-R diagram) shows the relation between the absolute magnitude and the spectral types of stars. It was invented around 1910 by Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell. There are two equivalent forms. One is the observer's form which plots the color of the star on one axis and the absolute magnitude on the other axis. The theoretician's form plots the temperature of the star on one axis and the...
X-ray Burster -- X-ray bursters are a class of binary stars which are luminous in X-rays. They contain a neutron star and a low-mass companion star. The companion fills its Roche lobe and therefore the neutron star is accreting matter from it. The inflowing gas forms an accretion disk around the neutron star. Sometimes X-ray bursters show a sudden increase in their X-ray luminosity, called X-ray burst. All properties of the X-ray bursts can be explained assuming that they result from...
Variable Star -- Most stars are of nearly constant luminosity. Our own Sun is a good example which goes through practically no measurable variation in brightness. There are, however, stars which do vary in brightness, called variable stars. They fall into two main groups: Intrinsic variables These are stars which have intrinsic variations in brightness, that is the star itself gets brighter and dimmer. There are many types of intrinsic variables, the main types being: --...
