Related topics: stars · black holes · galaxies · massive stars

What would happen to Earth if a rogue star came too close?

Stars are gravitationally fastened to their galaxies and move in concert with their surroundings. But sometimes, something breaks the bond. If a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole, for example, the black hole ...

A giant black hole destroys a massive star

Astronomers have made a thorough forensic study of a star that was torn apart when it ventured too close to a giant black hole and then had its insides tossed out into space.

Discovery of a brown dwarf hotter than the sun

An international team of astronomers has discovered a planet-like object that is hotter than the sun. Their report has been accepted for publication in the journal Nature Astronomy and is currently available on the arXiv ...

Astronomers discover an unusually low-density super-Earth

An international team of astronomers reports the detection of a new "super-Earth" exoplanet using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The newfound alien world, designated TOI-244 b, turns out to have an unusually ...

Astrophysicists hunt for second-closest supermassive black hole

Two astrophysicists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have suggested a way to observe what could be the second-closest supermassive black hole to Earth: a behemoth 3 million times the mass of the Sun, hosted ...

Astronomers discover closest black hole to Earth

Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe. Supermassive versions of these unimaginably dense objects likely reside at the centers of all large galaxies. Stellar-mass black holes—which weigh approximately ...

Zombie worlds: Five spooky planets orbiting dead stars

All stars, including the sun, have a finite lifetime. Stars shine by the process of nuclear fusion in which lighter atoms, such as hydrogen, fuse together to create heavier ones. This process releases vast quantities of energy ...

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