metallicity
The Brightest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen Came from a Collapsing Star
After a journey lasting about two billion years, photons from an extremely energetic gamma-ray burst (GRB) struck the sensors on…
The Large Magellanic Cloud isn’t Very Metal
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the Milky Way's most massive satellite galaxy. Because it's so easily observed, astronomers have…
One in Twelve Stars Ate a Planet
That stars can eat planets is axiomatic. If a small enough planet gets too close to a large enough star,…
This Globular Cluster is Plunging Toward the Milky Way’s Centre
Globular clusters (GCs) are spherical groups of stars held together by mutual gravity. Large ones can have millions of stars,…
Can Webb Find the First Stars in the Universe?
The Universe's very first stars had an important job. They formed from the primordial elements created by the Big Bang,…
Adolescent Galaxies are Incandescent and Contain Unexpected Elements
If the Universe has adolescent galaxies, they're the ones that formed about 2 to 3 billion years after the Big…
We Can't See the First Stars Yet, but We Can See Their Direct Descendants
The first stars in the Universe were enormous, made of primordial hydrogen and helium from the Big Bang. They lived…
A Star was Blocking a Galaxy, but Now it’s Moved Enough That Astronomers can Finally Examine What it Was Hiding
One of the biggest puzzles in astronomy, and one of the hardest ones to solve, concerns the formation and evolution…
Jupiter is up to 9% Rock and Metal, Which Means it Ate a lot of Planets in its Youth
Jupiter is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. The amounts of each closely conform to the theoretical quantities in…
The Large Magellanic Cloud Stole one of its Globular Clusters
Astronomers have known for years that galaxies are cannibalistic. Massive galaxies like our own Milky Way have gained mass by…