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.
The good thing about space is that – even though it has lots of dangerous stuff floating in it, and lots of exploding stars – it’s so big and empty that it almost doesn’t matter.
NASA/CXC/U.Texas
Brad Carter, University of Southern Queensland and Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
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.
Artist conception of a tidal disruption event (TDE) that happens when a star passes fatally close to a supermassive black hole.
Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF.
Stargazing seems such a quiet, calm activity. But whether our eyes can see or not, those stars out there are in constant flux. Time-domain astronomy studies how cosmic objects change with time.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics image of a supernova explosion discovered by Johannes Kepler in 1604.
Flickr/X-ray: NASA/CXC/NCSU/M.Burkey et al; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Our understanding of heavy element production in supernovae, exploding stars way beyond our solar system, may need to change following some discoveries we have made looking not to the skies, but deep under…
Research scientist & Head of Science Operations and Support, e-MERLIN/VLBI National Radio Astronomy Facility, Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester