Has the Sun entered a stage of old age?
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Articles on Stars
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This observation means astronomers can now develop and test theories that explain how high-mass stars gain their mass.
The Dish in Parkes is scanning the southern Milky Way, searching for alien signals
The Conversation50.7 MB (download)
Today we hear about the Parkes radio telescope's role in the search for alien life. Our guide is the irrepressible John Sarkissian, the scientist who's had his eye on The Dish since childhood.
If Betelgeuse explodes, it will become as bright as the full moon in a matter of days and be visible during day time.
NASA scientists have discovered a new planet orbiting around a nearby star that is in a habitable zone. But does this planet have liquid oceans that can support life?
Dark sky sites can inspire new generations of stargazers, but a better long-term solution would be connecting people with the night sky where they live.
Stars begin their life inside very large, fluffy clouds of space dust and gas called nebulae.
Around the world and throughout history, we find remarkably similar constellations defined by disparate cultures, as well as strikingly similar narratives describing the relationships between them.
In an age when women were rarely allowed in observatories, Margaret Burbidge changed how we saw the stars.
If you got too close to a black hole, it would suck you in and you’d never be able to escape, even if you were travelling at the speed of light.
This point of no return is called the event horizon.
Yes, the Sun absolutely spins. In fact, everything in the universe spins. Some things spin faster than the Sun, some are slower and some things spin ‘backwards’.
When you look at the squiggly lines on Joy Division’s famous album cover, you’re seeing a record of lightning in outer space.
The diameter of the Milky Way is a billion billion kilometres.
Science is full of surprises. While searching for planets orbiting nearby stars, researchers stumbled across the remains of a star that once outshone the Sun.
By studying old and dead stars, we can discover what will happen to our sun in the far, far future. And it won’t end with a big explosion.
Shooting stars are not stars at all. They are tiny space adventurers who accidentally wander into our sky and get sucked toward us by Earth’s gravity. Here’s the story of a shooting star’s journey.
The Milky Way’s disc of stars becomes increasingly warped and twisted the further away they are from the galaxy’s centre.
When you look up at the vastness of space you can see hundreds, thousands and even millions of years into the past.
Are there stars other than the Sun that might explode soon close to us? Yes, there are! As long as by ‘soon’ we mean within a million years.
There are lots of places where it’s much, much hotter than the Sun. And the amazing thing is that this heat also makes new atoms - tiny particles that have made their way long ago from stars to us.
Top contributors
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Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland
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University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona
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Professor (Physics), University of Southern Queensland
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Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University
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Lecturer in Astronomy, Nottingham Trent University
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Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria and Honorary Fellow at University of Melbourne, Museums Victoria Research Institute
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Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne
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Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland
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PhD; Associate Professor in Astrophysics, Monash University
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Professor of Astrophysics Education, The Open University
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Director of DAIM, University of Hull
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John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University
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CAASTRO Affiliate Postdoc, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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ARC Laureate Fellow & Distinguished Professor, Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology
