The recent data from the Gaia space observatory has allowed astronomers, for the first time, to create a large 3D atlas of widely separated binary stars–1.3 million of them, within roughly 3 000 light-years of Earth. The atlas, generated by Ph.D. astrophysics…
An unusual tear-drop shaped star that only pulsates on one side has been discovered by amateur astronomers, who saw the anomaly in data taken by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). It is reportedly the first of its kind, and scientists are…
Scientists were left puzzled after a mysterious radio signal– observed near the Southern Constellation of Ara using the MeerKAT telescope– suggests a new type of star system in the Milky Way. About two months using the radio telescope based in the Karoo desert in…
According to a new analysis by a theoretical physicist from UC Berkley and a radio astronomer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard University, our sun, as well as every other sunlike star in the universe, had a twin when it was born. Astronomers…
Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute in Germany have discovered a spectacular system consisting of two stars with three rotating planet-forming accretion discs around them. This is a binary star system where each star has its own planet-forming disc and in…
In late June 2013 astronomers using Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observed an exceptional binary containing a rapidly spinning neutron star which suddenly underwent a dramatic change in behavior. The pulsar's radio beacon vanished, while at the same time the
In the middle of the 19th century, the massive binary system Eta Carinae underwent an eruption that ejected at least 10 times the sun's mass and made it the second-brightest star in the sky. Now, a team of astronomers has used extensive new observations to create th
