Stars

Sunset on a planet orbiting Betelgeuse? No, just our own Sun reddened in October 2020 by Colorado wildfires. Credit: Phil Plait
Don't panic! But Betelgeuse may be 25% closer to Earth than we previously thought
Phil Plait
Trending on SYFY WIRE in Stars
Tag: Bad Astronomy
Tag: Supernova
Tag: Betelgeuse
Tag: supermassive black holes
Tag: galaxies

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Tag: Exoplanets
Heavy metal planet brings the heat
Phil Plait
Artwork depicting an ultra-hot Jupiter, a massive exoplanet so close to its star that some of its atmosphere is boiling off. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
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Tag: supermassive black holes
Astronomers get a front row seat to a star getting torn apart by a huge black hole
Phil Plait
Artwork depicting a tidal disruption event, when a star is torn apart by a black hole. A stream of matter is puller off, forming a disk around the black hole and creating an outflow of high-speed material. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
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A second planet for Beta Pic confirmed!
Phil Plait
Artwork depicting a gas giant planet orbiting around the star Beta Pictoris, still enshrouded in a disk of gas and dust. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
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Earth was rocked by a supernova that possibly brought on the Ice Age 2.5 million years ago
Elizabeth Rayne
Ice Age
Tag: Science
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Tag: Black Holes
Tag: Quantum Mechanics
See-through stars could be glowing eerily all over space
Elizabeth Rayne
Sep 15, 2020
NASA image of stars
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Magneto's got nothing on this neutron star's record-breaking magnetic field
Jeff Spry
Sep 13, 2020
pulsar
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A triple-star gravitational dance creates ridiculously complex sculptures
Phil Plait
Sep 8, 2020
Observations of the trinary star GW Ori (right) show it’s surrounded by a complex system of gas and dust, depicted in artwork (left) showing tilted rings and warped disks. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada, Exeter/Kraus et al.
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Tag: Sgr A*
The fastest star in the galaxy has been found, and yeah, it’s really *really* fast
Phil Plait
Aug 17, 2020
A simulation showing the positions and orbits of stars orbiting the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/spaceengine.org
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Tag: Betelgeuse
Smoking gun at Betelgeuse: Hubble shows it was belching dust that dimmed the red supergiant
Phil Plait
Aug 14, 2020
Dramatic artwork depicting a huge cloud of dark dust erupting from the southern hemisphere of Betelgeuse, obscuring it and causing The Great Dimming of late 2019. Credit: ESO, ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
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Tag: globular clusters
The Phoenix star stream, remnant of a long-dead stellar city
Phil Plait
Aug 12, 2020
Artwork depicting the Phoenix stream circling the Milky Way (left), and some of the old red stars that were once members of the parent globular cluster that got torn apart to make the stream (right). Credit: James Josephides (Swinburne Astronomy Productio
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There might be a star out there barely old enough to remember the ‘80s—among stars that are billions of years old
Elizabeth Rayne
Aug 10, 2020
SN 1987A
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How many habitable planets can one star have? Turns out, about 6.
Phil Plait
Aug 3, 2020
Artwork depicting a star with several planets orbiting it. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
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An exoplanet first: Two giant planets directly imaged around a young Sun-like star
Phil Plait
Jul 23, 2020
An actual image of two planets (arrowed) orbiting a very Sun-like star, TYC 8998-760-1 (upper left), the glare of which is reduced by blocking its light. The system is young, just 17 million years old, and about 310 light years away. Credit: ESO/Bohn et a
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R I G E L
Phil Plait
Jul 15, 2020
Rigel (top center) is the brightest star in Orion, but in this very deep exposure there is a lot more to see. Credit: Adam Block /Steward Observatory/University of Arizona
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The fastest spinning star in the galaxy
Phil Plait
Jul 8, 2020
Artwork depicting a star rotating so rapidly it’s flattened, or oblate, and flinging material away from its equator. Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
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