A newly observed molecular drift may reveal how magnetic fields weaken before a star is born.
Category: space – Page 3
Dead stars in our cosmic backyard: Astronomers spot four white dwarfs hiding under our noses
Researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Colorado Boulder have directly observed, for the first time, four white dwarfs in binary star systems in our nearby region of space. These stellar binaries are all within 65 light-years of Earth, and one contains the ninth-closest white dwarf to the sun.
The four systems each include a red dwarf companion—a larger, brighter star—making the systems appear to be single-star systems. The new results, published in MNRAS, show that each of these nearby red dwarfs hosts a hidden white dwarf companion.
First author Dr. Mairi O’Brien, a research fellow at the University of Warwick, said, “Nearby isolated white dwarfs are usually easy to find, but we couldn’t see these four stars directly in visible wavelengths because their red dwarf companions were drowning out their light. It’s a reminder that even in our own cosmic neighborhood, we can still find surprises if we look in the right way, at the right wavelengths.”
Extremely Large Telescope reaches a major milestone
The Extremely Large Telescope just passed a serious milestone while coming together. But it’s not done yet; the immense telescope is about to get even larger.
The European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO)’s Extremely Large Telescope is under construction on a mountaintop in Chile.
Nearby ‘Super Earth’ may be a better candidate for life than previously thought
Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. The planet, known as GJ 3378b, orbits a small, cool star called a red dwarf. Just 25 light-years from Earth in the direction of the northern constellation Camelopardalis, it lies in its star’s “habitable zone”—the region where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist—making it a candidate to host life.
“Our mantra is ‘follow the water,’” explained Paul Robertson, an astronomer at the University of California, Irvine, and lead author on the new study of GJ 3378b published in The Astrophysical Journal. “It’s the one thing every known living thing on Earth needs, so that’s the first thing we look for when trying to find environments that could sustain life.”
Reddwarfs are the coolest group of stars in existence. They are much smaller and dimmer than our sun and often appear reddish, hence their name. They are the most common stars in our galaxy, making them an important target in the search for life outside our solar system.
In a Flight of Starlings by Giorgio Parisi
From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, an enlightening and personal journey into the practice of groundbreaking science.
“[Giorgio Parisi is] an extraordinary scientist.” —Carlo Rovelli
With In a Flight of Starlings, celebrated physicist Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work, starting with investigating the principles of physics by observing the flight of flocks of birds. Studying the movements of these communities, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds—collections of everything from atoms and planets to other animals, such as ourselves.
Warm Jupiter exoplanet transiting a sun-like star discovered
An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star as part of the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS). The newfound alien world, designated NGTS-39 b, is a Jupiter-sized planet with an equilibrium temperature of about 519 K. The discovery was detailed in a paper published July 2 on the preprint server arXiv.
NGTS-39 (also known as TIC-453147896) is a relatively bright star of spectral type F9 located some 910 light-years from Earth. The star was observed multiple times between 2019 and 2024 with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which detected a transit signal in its light curve.
Now, a group of astronomers led by Ioannis Apergis of the University of Warwick, UK, have used NGTS’ 12 robotic Newtonian telescopes to perform follow-up photometric observations of NGTS-39. This, together with radial velocity measurements from CORALIE and HARPS spectrographs, allowed the team to confirm the planetary nature of the TESS-detected signal.
NASA space telescope maps magnetic fields of ‘Lighthouse’ pulsar
For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) to directly measure the magnetic fields of PSR J1101−6101, a pulsar located within what is often referred to as the Lighthouse Nebula. The results provide new insight into the structure of some of the most extreme objects in the cosmos, as NASA continues to explore the secrets of how the universe works. A paper describing the results was published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.
A pulsar is a type of neutron star with a strong magnetic field that spins incredibly fast. The pulsar at the center of the Lighthouse Nebula is rotating 16 times per second. Neutron stars are the leftover cores of massive stars, formed at the end of their life cycles, that possess more mass than the sun. They are condensed down to the size of a city, making them natural laboratories for studying extreme physics.
In June 2025, IXPE spent nearly 18 days focused on the Lighthouse Nebula.
