White dwarf stars are the final evolutionary state of most stars. They are everywhere in the Galaxy and are relatively easy to model. So can we learn about our Galaxy solely by studying them? The authors of today’s paper show us a way.
Image credits: ESO/Y. Beletsky.
Our galaxy is not just made up of stars and dark matter, but a huge weight of dust, extending out much further than we can see. Now we’re starting to pin down the properties of our surrounding mysterious gas cloud, and new evidence shows that it’s busy doing it’s own thing.
Deep imaging of a nearby dwarf galaxy reveals a new globular cluster.
Recent surveys of the sky showed the presence of stars that seem to be too young for the population that they belong to. In today’s bite, we will see that cannibalism between two very close stars could be a viable way to produce these curious objects.
Red giant stars are bright enough to see at the center of our galaxy, but they are missing. A new study puts stars in a wind tunnel to explore a possible way to dim the lights.
Using data obtained from surveys of stars in the Milky Way and some clever programming, it is now possible to find stellar siblings scattered throughout our Galaxy, and thus obtain invaluable information on its evolution.