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Found 28 results for dwarf planet

Two-faced star seems to have one hydrogen side and one helium side

19 July 2023

A strange star more than 1300 light years away appears to have two sides with completely different compositions, and astronomers aren’t sure how it ended up that way

Could we put out the sun with a sun-sized orb of water?

18 July 2023

What would happen if we pushed a sun-sized ball of water into our star? The Dead Planets Society podcast dives into the possibilities

Deadly stellar radiation blasts 'habitable' exoplanets every few days

26 September 2022

Planets orbiting M-class red dwarf stars have been suggested as some of the most promising places to look for alien life, but now it seems powerful outbursts from the stars could render them uninhabitable

$This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from NASA???s Webb Telescope. This scene was created by a white dwarf star ??? the remains of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel though nuclear fusion. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells all along this view. In the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image, the white dwarf appears to the lower left of the bright, central star, partially hidden by a diffraction spike. The same star appears ??? but brighter, larger, and redder ??? in the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image. This white dwarf star is cloaked in thick layers of dust, which make it appear larger. The brighter star in both images hasn???t yet shed its layers. It closely orbits the dimmer white dwarf, helping to distribute what it???s ejected. Over thousands of years and before it became a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass ??? the visible shells of material. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up ??? and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated. Stellar material was sent in all directions ??? like a rotating sprinkler ??? and provided the ingredients for this asymmetrical landscape. Today, the white dwarf is heating up the gas in the inner regions ??? which appear blue at left and red at right. Both stars are lighting up the outer regions, shown in orange and blue, respectively. The images look very different because NIRCam and MIRI collect different wavelengths of light. NIRCam observes near-infrared light, which is closer to the visible wavelengths our eyes detect. MIRI goes farther into the infrared, picking up mid-infrared wavelengths. The second star more clearly appears in the MIRI image, because this instrument can see the gleaming dust around it, bringing it more clearly into view. The stars ??? and their layers of light ??? steal more attention in the NIRCam image, while dust pl$

James Webb Space Telescope releases dazzling first science images

12 July 2022

Incredibly clear images of the Carina Nebula, the Eight-Burst Nebula, a galaxy cluster called Stephan’s Quintet and an exoplanet named WASP-96b make up the first set of science data from JWST

7 big questions the James Webb Space Telescope is about to answer

6 July 2022

NASA has just released the first full-colour image from the James Webb Space Telescope. Here’s what it is looking at first – and how it will address the biggest mysteries of the universe

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

Dwarf planet Ceres is shown in these false-color renderings, which highlight differences in surface materials.

Now is the perfect time to see dwarf planet Ceres for yourself

24 November 2021

The only dwarf planet in the inner solar system, Ceres will be at its closest to Earth for a week from the end of November. Catch it while you can, says Abigail Beall

Stars imaged by the DECam Plane Survey TIC 400799224 is identified in the crosshairs.

Weird shape-shifting clouds of dust seem to be orbiting a distant star

14 October 2021

The light from a distant star appears to be orbited by something that is continually changing shape and size, possibly clouds of dust from repeated collisions

Is there an ancient black hole at the edge of the solar system?

31 March 2021

Hints of a hefty source of gravity beyond Pluto sparked the search for a possible “Planet Nine”. Now, some astronomers think it could instead be a black hole from the big bang, offering a rare glimpse into the early universe

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