stars
Astronomers have spotted what may be the smallest stars ever seen
Possibly the smallest stars ever discovered NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Kevin Luhman (PSU), Catarina Alves de Oliveira (ESA) The border between what is a star and what is a planet is blurry, and new findings from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made it even less clear. These objects appear to be brown dwarfs,…
A bar of stars at the center of the Milky Way looks surprisingly young
The biography of our home galaxy may be due for some revisions. That’s because a bar-shaped collection of stars at the center of the Milky Way appears to be much younger than expected. The bar is a prominent feature of our galaxy (SN: 6/25/21). It spans thousands of light-years and links the galaxy’s spiraling arms…
How tiny red stars can test ideas about the origin of life
A survey of small, cool stars is helping to narrow in on the conditions that might set the stage for life beyond our solar system. A look at about 200 ultracool dwarf stars shows that they lack sufficient ultraviolet light intensity to have the potential to jump-start life, researchers report December 1 in the Monthly…
Largest stream of stars ever found could teach us about dark matter
The black streak is the newly discovered Giant Coma Stream, which is ten times as long as the Milky Way William Herschel Telescope/Román et al. Astronomers have found the biggest stream of stars ever recorded. This tendril of stars is extraordinarily faint, but it and others like it could eventually help us unveil the true…