It’s a Great Time to Be an Astrophysician
Betelgeuse faded dramatically in 2019 and 2020. Fortunately a team of star doctors…(err, astrophysicists) have diagnosed the problem!
History lessons from chemical elements
Chemical elements are pretty good history teachers! Today’s paper describes how chemical abundances can tell us about the history of where a planet formed.
One Plot to Rule Them All – A Review of the Skumanich Law
This bite summarizes Andrew Skumanich’s 1972 paper that established the foundation of the field of Gyrochronology.
The Case of the Evaporating Exoplanet
Today’s authors investigate a young star hosting an exoplanet, and watch as its X-ray flares speed up the planet’s evaporation!
A Stellar ‘Light Switch’ Orbiting a Black Hole
Today’s authors investigate the sudden re-appearance of X-ray emission from a star being eaten by a supermassive black hole!
Could Stripped Stars be False Positives in the Search for the Missing Black Holes?
The authors of today’s article argue that stripped B-type stars could be a source of false positives in the search for quiet, stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way