metallicity
Binary Stars Form in the Same Nebula But Aren’t Identical. Now We Know Why.
It stands to reason that stars formed from the same cloud of material will have the same metallicity. That fact…
Astronomers Think They’ve Found Examples of the First Stars in the Universe
When the first stars in the Universe formed, the only material available was primordial hydrogen and helium from the Big…
The Milky Way’s Most Massive Stellar Black Hole is Only 2,000 Light Years Away
Astronomers have found the largest stellar mass black hole in the Milky Way so far. At 33 solar masses, it…
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…