binary stars
Binary Stars Live Complicated Lives, Especially Near the End
We know what will happen to our Sun. It'll follow the same path other stars of its ilk follow. It'll…
Astronomers Have a New Way to Find Exoplanets in Cataclysmic Binary Systems
Have you heard of LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis and BK Lyncis? No, they're not members of a boy…
Hubble Sees a Surviving Companion Star After its Partner Went Supernova
When stars die they’re often not alone, and for the first time astronomers have found a companion to a supernova,…
Slimmed Down Red Giants Had Their Mass Stolen By a Companion Star
Millions of stars that can grow up to 620 million miles in diameter, known as 'red giants,' exist in our…
Planets Have Just Started to Form in This Binary System
Astronomers have watched the young binary star system SVS 13 for decades. Astronomers don't know much about how planets form…
A Second Generation of Planets can Form Around a Dying Star
When young stars coalesce out of a cloud of molecular hydrogen, a disk of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk…
Incredible Image Shows Twin Stellar Jets Blasting Out of a Star-Forming Region
Young stars go through a lot as they're being born. They sometimes emit jets of ionized gas called MHOs—Molecular Hydrogen…
Astronomers Discover a Totally New Kind of Nebula
Most Universe Today readers are familiar with nebulae. They're gaseous structures lit up with radiation from nearby stars, and they're…
Astronomers See a Star Crash Through the Planetary Disk of Another Star
What causes an otherwise unremarkable star to become over 100 times brighter? That's a question astronomers have been pondering since…
Many Sunlike Stars Gobbled up Some of Their Planets
New research shows that other sunlike stars in our galaxy aren't so kind to their planets. Up to a quarter…