Death and Birth of Stars

Using a new observing capability of the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array radio telescope, astronomers have discovered a solar-system-sized disk of gas and dust feeding material onto a young star with 8 to 10 times the mass of the Sun.

Looking more than 12 billion years into the past, the scientists found that the young galaxy experiencing a burst of star formation was surrounded by enough cold molecular gas to make 100 billion suns.

Pulsars, those spinning, superdense neutron stars that send powerful lighthouse beams of radio waves and light flashing through the Universe, have been lying about their ages.

Three teams of scientists have used the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope to learn tantalizing new details about how Sun-like stars are formed.

A superfast jet of subatomic particles presumably powered by the gravitational energy of a black hole has collided with nearby material, been slowed dramatically and released much of its energy in the collision, radio astronomers report.

Astronomers using radio telescopes in New Mexico and California have discovered a giant, rotating disk of material around a young, massive star, indicating that very massive stars as well as those closer to the size of the Sun may be circled by disks from which planets are thought to form.