Star Formation
Why The First Stars Couldn’t Grow Forever
Star formation in the early Universe was a vigorous process that created gigantic stars. Called Population 3 stars, these giants…
Hubble Shows Young Stars Shaping Their Surroundings in the Orion Nebula
Orion the Hunter, resplendent in the northern hemisphere's night sky in winter, is more than an easily identified constellation. It's…
The Star-Forming Party Ended Early in Isolated Dwarf Galaxies
Gas is the stuff of star formation, and most galaxies have enough gas in their budget to form some stars.…
Habitable Worlds Could Have Formed Before the First Galaxies
What came first, galaxies or planets? The answer has always been galaxies, but new research is changing that idea. Could…
Astronomers are Watching a Newly Forming Super Star Cluster
Six or seven billion years ago, most stars formed in super star clusters. That type of star formation has largely…
A Binary Star Found Surprisingly Close to the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole
Astronomers have already discovered many stars orbiting the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, Sgr A*.…
The Hubble and FU Orionis: a New Look at an Old Mystery
In 1936 astronomers watched as FU Orionis, a dim star in the Orion constellation, brightened dramatically. The star's brightness increased…
An Explanation for Rogue Planets. They Were Eroded Down by Hot Stars
WST recently turned up hundreds of free-floating rogue planets in the Orion Nebula, 42 in binary configurations. How two Jupiter-mass…
The Webb Discovers a Rich Population of Brown Dwarfs Outside the Milky Way
This stunning image of a star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is more than just a pretty picture.…
A Black Hole has Almost Halted Star Formation in its Galaxy
When the James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day in 2021, it faced a whole host of intriguing…