Stars

Why do M-class red dwarfs appear to disperse their protoplanetary discs more slowly than other stars? Credit: ESO

Peter Pan discs: the planetary systems that never grow up

ESO’s Very Large Telescope images of Betelgeuse. Left: January 2019, before dimming. Right: December 2019, during dimming. Credit: ESO/M. Montargès et al.

Betelgeuse is brightening up again

These two stars are orbiting each other so closely that they have become what’s known as a contact binary. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

What are the weirdest stars in the Universe?

The red giant star Betelgeuse (the prominent orange-red star above centre in this image), as it appears in the constellation of Orion. Credit: Rolf Löhr / CCDGuide.com

Is Betelgeuse really about to explode?

Star factory: the Orion A molecular cloud, as captured by the VISTA infrared telescope, contains many young stars. ESO/VISION survey

How do stars form?

The Sun shows us how sunspots appear dark against a star. Credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA)

Observing spots on distant stars

The Pleiades, as seen through a telescope. This cluster is known as 'The Seven Sistsers' in Greek and also Aboriginal mythology. NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar Observatory The science team consists of: D. Soderblom and E. Nelan (STScI), F. Benedict and B. Arthur (U. Texas), and B. Jones (Lick Obs.)

A beginner’s guide to stars

An image of the Andromeda Galaxy by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

Andromeda Galaxy’s last meal

S5-HVS1 has been speeding away ever since its dust-up with black hole Sgr A* 4.8 million years ago. Credit: hadzi3/iStock/Getty Images, Vadim Sadovski/iStock/Getty Images.

Speeding star reveals the secrets of the Milky Way

comparison of the sizes of small stars to the largest planets in our Solar System. EBLM J0555-57Ab, the newly found star, is only slightly larger than Saturn.
Credit: Amanda Smith, University of Cambridge

Smallest known star discovered

RADIO ASTRONOMY_PODCAST_2018

Radio Astronomy Podcast Lunar eclipses, 2019 space missions and green stars

The Orion constellation: differences in colour give a very subtle hint as to how stars can be vastly different. Credit: Zdeněk Bardon/ESO

A guide to stellar spectral classifications

When Neutron stars collide (artist's impression) Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

What are gravitational waves?

The act of a black hole destroying a star kick starts a chain of events which leads to a jet travelling at near light speeds. Image Credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF; NASA, STScI

Black hole seen destroying star for the first time

Galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 in an image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope. Inset is galaxy MACS1149-JD1, seen by ALMA as it existed 13.3 billion years ago. Red shows the distribution of oxygen; the most distant ever detected. Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, W. Zheng (JHU), M. Postman (STScI), the CLASH Team, Hashimoto et al.

Stars formed 250 million years after Big Bang