stars articles
What do stellar cycles mean?
The progression of a star through its lifespan, often referred to as its stellar cycle or evolutionary path, describes t...
Are red stars dead?
Staring up at the night sky, it is easy to accept the pinpricks of light as eternal fixtures. Yet, every star we observe...
Are O-type stars the hottest?
The short answer to whether O-type stars are the hottest is an emphatic yes. Within the primary sequence of stellar clas...
What is the light from Orion's belt?
The light emanating from the region surrounding Orion's Belt is not a single phenomenon but a collection of brilliant st...
Where do all stars start to form?
The beginning of a star is a dramatic event, yet it occurs in the coldest, darkest corners of the galaxy, far from the b...
Where do most stars come from?
The birthplace of stars is not a single, fiery location but rather vast, cold, and incredibly dense regions scattered th...
Why are stars called dwarfs?
The classification of stars into categories like "dwarf" can often sound counterintuitive when we look up at the night s...
Why do planetary nebulas have so many different shapes?
The vast, glowing clouds known as planetary nebulas present a stunning array of forms across the night sky, from simple ...
Are there stars that live forever?
The concept of a star living forever seems to clash with our observations of exploding supernovae and dimming remnants, ...
Are planetary nebulas rare?
The appearance of a glowing shell of gas drifting in space, often displaying vibrant colors and intricate shapes, immedi...
What is the reason that planetary nebulae are visible?
Planetary nebulae owe their ephemeral visibility to a dramatic final act in the lives of certain stars—specifically, med...
Why don't stars fall out of the sky?
The notion that stars might suddenly detach from the heavens and drop toward Earth is a dramatic image, but it rests on ...
What were stars before they were stars?
The material that eventually ignited to become the universe’s first stars existed in a state profoundly different from t...
What came before the stars?
The grand cosmic tapestry we observe today, peppered with countless galaxies, nebulae, and the familiar glow of establis...
Why did I just see a line of stars moving?
That sudden appearance of a perfectly straight, evenly spaced line of bright dots marching silently across the dark sky ...
How do stars begin their life?
The vast, cold reaches of interstellar space are not entirely empty; they are peppered with colossal clouds of gas and d...
What was before the stars?
The universe, in its infancy, was a place vastly different from the star-studded expanse we observe tonight. Before the ...
What are all stars called as they begin their lives?
The grand, shimmering lights we see overhead have an entire biography, an evolution written across billions of years, di...
How does a protostar generate energy?
The creation of a star is not an instantaneous event but a drawn-out, tumultuous adolescence where gravity wrestles with...
Why is hydrogen so important to the universe?
The initial appearance of hydrogen, the simplest of all elements, sets the stage for everything that has ever been obser...
Why do all stars contain hydrogen?
The vast majority of the material making up every star in existence is, simply put, the leftover building blocks from th...
Which type of galaxy contains mostly older stars?
When we gaze into the cosmos, the sheer variety of galaxies can seem overwhelming, but astronomers simplify this vastnes...
What stars are good for life?
The search for life beyond Earth inevitably centers on finding the right kind of star to anchor a habitable world. It's ...
What is a galaxy made up of gas, dust, and stars?
Galaxies are vast, gravitationally bound systems composed of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and an imp...