dust clouds tagged posts

Starlight and stardust are not enough to drive the powerful winds of giant stars, transporting the building blocks of life through our galaxy. That’s the conclusion of a new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, of red giant star R Doradus. The result overturns a long-held idea about how the atoms needed for life are spread.

The study, “An empirical view of the extended atmosphere and inner envelope of the asymptotic giant branch star R Doradus II...

An artist’s impression of what an active galactic nucleus might look like close up. The accretion disk produces the brilliant light in the center. The broad-line region is just above the accretion disk and lost in the glare. Dust clouds are being driven upward by the intense radiation. Credit: Peter Z. Harrington

Mysterious features seen in light emitted from active galactic nuclei may be due to partial obscuration by dust clouds. Many large galaxies have a bright central region called an active galactic nucleus (AGN), powered by matter spiraling into a supermassive black hole...