A cosmic explosion seen last February may have been the tip of an iceberg” showing that powerful, distant gamma ray bursts are outnumbered ten-to-one by less-energetic cousins, according to an international team of astronomers.
New Insight on How Massive Stars Form
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have discovered key evidence that may help them figure out how very massive stars can form.
Supermagnetic Neutron Star Surprises Scientists
Astronomers using radio telescopes from around the world have discovered a spinning neutron star with a superpowerful magnetic field — called a magnetar — doing things no magnetar has been seen to do before.
‘Special Case’ Stellar Blast
A powerful thermonuclear explosion on a dense white-dwarf star last February has given astronomers their best look yet at the early stages of such explosions, called novae, and also is giving them tantalizing new clues about the workings of bigger explosions, called supernovae, that are used to measure the Universe.
Magnetic Fields Sculpt Narrow Jets From Dying Star
Molecules spewed outward from a dying star are confined into narrow jets by a tightly-wound magnetic field, according to astronomers who used the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope to study an old star about 8,500 light-years from Earth.
Planets Orbiting Star in Opposite Directions
Astronomers studying a disk of material circling a still-forming star inside our Galaxy have found a tantalizing result — the inner part of the disk is orbiting the protostar in the opposite direction from the outer part of the disk.