Search | New Scientist

Found 6 results for asteroid

Absolutely enormous asteroid belt discovered around a nearby star

8 May 2023

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to spot strange asteroid belts around the nearby star Fomalhaut, along with evidence for at least three planets

This artist???s impression shows a two-star system where micronovae may occur. The blue disc swirling around the bright white dwarf in the centre of the image is made up of material, mostly hydrogen, stolen from its companion star. Towards the centre of the disc, the white dwarf uses its strong magnetic fields to funnel the hydrogen towards its poles. As the material falls on the hot surface of the star, it triggers a micronova explosion, contained by the magnetic fields at one of the white dwarf???s poles.

Small explosions called micronovae discovered on dead stars

20 April 2022

Micronovae are about 1 million times less bright than a classical nova and last just half a day, but they release as much energy as the sun would in a day

White dwarfs seen eating the remnants of destroyed planets

12 January 2021

Signs of the metals that make up Earth’s crust have been seen in the light coming from four dead stars known as white dwarfs, which may have consumed distant planets similar to ours

Earth may be made up of rocks blasted by gusts of solar wind

6 December 2018

The area in our solar system within Mercury’s orbit is empty, which may be because solar winds threw all the rocks farther out, where they helped form planets

Stars from outside the Milky Way seen zooming through the galaxy

3 May 2018

We’ve seen two runaway stars hurtling through the galaxy at more than 700 kilometres per second, and dozens more going so fast they could escape the Milky Way

A tech-destroying solar flare could hit Earth within 100 years

16 October 2017

If the sun spews “superflares” as often as other stars, one could take down power systems, damage the ozone layer and destroy satellites in the next century