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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Near-Sun Comet Roasted to Death

    June 16, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Near-Sun object 323P/SOHO observed by the Subaru Telescope on December 21, 2020 (left) and CFHT on February 11, 2021 (right). 323P/SOHO on its way to perihelion is seen as a point source in the center of the left image; after the perihelion, the comet has developed a long narrow tail as seen in the right image. (Credit: Subaru Telescope/CFHT/Man-To Hui/David Tholen)

    Astronomers using a fleet of world leading telescopes on the ground and in space have captured images of a periodic rocky near-Sun comet breaking apart. This is the first time such a comet has been caught in the act of disintegrating and could help explain the scarcity of such periodic near-Sun comets.

    The Solar System is a dangerous place...

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    A Weird Star Produced the Fastest Nova on Record

    June 15, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Illustration of an intermediate polar system, a type of two-star system that the research team thinks V1674 Hercules belongs to. A flow of gas from the large companion star impacts an accretion disk before flowing along magnetic field lines onto the white dwarf. Illustration by Mark Garlick

    Astronomers are buzzing after observing the fastest nova ever recorded. The unusual event drew scientists’ attention to an even more unusual star. As they study it, they may find answers to not only the nova’s many baffling traits, but to larger questions about the chemistry of our solar system, the death of stars and the evolution of the universe.

    The research team, led by Arizona State University Regents Professor Sumner Starrfield, Professor Charles Woodward from University of Minnesota and Re...

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    Wandering Star Disrupts Stellar Nursery

    June 15, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Event provides new evidence that traveling stars can form binary systems. From a zoomed out, distant view, star-forming cloud L483 appears normal. But when a Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists zoomed in closer and closer, things became weirder and weirder.

    As the researchers peered closer into the cloud, they noticed that its magnetic field was curiously twisted. And then — as they examined a newborn star within the cloud — they spotted a hidden star, tucked behind it.

    “It’s the star’s sibling, basically,” said Northwestern’s Erin Cox, who led the new study. “We think these stars formed far apart, and one moved closer to the other to form a binary. When the star traveled closer to its sibling, it shifted the dynamics of the cloud to twist its magnetic field.”

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    Simulations reveal Hydrodynamics of Planetary Engulfment by Expanding Star

    June 14, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    engulfed-planet-500.jpg
    In this schematic of planetary engulfment, the image on the left shows a planet inside a giant star, with its orbital decay trajectory as a dashed line. The image on the right shows density and velocity in a simulation of the flow near the planet. (Credit: Ricardo Yarza et al.)

    A new study using hydrodynamical simulations reveals the forces acting on a planet when it is swallowed by an expanding star. The results show that the interactions of a substellar body (a planet or brown dwarf) with the hot gas in the outer envelope of a sun-like star can lead to a range of outcomes depending on the size of the engulfed object and the stage of the star’s evolution...

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