Researchers have identified more than 2,000 stars whose past, present, or future vantage points afford a view of Earth passing directly in front of the Sun, a geometry useful for pinpointing planets.
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When Betelgeuse Won’t Explode, You Need a Big Telescope to Prove It
Thanks to last-minute telescope time, researchers pieced together the sequence of events that caused Betelgeuse’s Great Dimming last year.
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Record-Setting Flare Spotted on the Nearest Star to the Sun
Proxima Centauri recently let loose a blast of radiation, and ground- and space-based telescopes detected the record-setting event at wavelengths ranging from radio to the ultraviolet.
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1.3 Million Pairs of Stars Surround the Sun
Roughly half of Sun-like stars have a stellar sibling, and a surprising fraction of those siblings are identical twins.
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Seeing Stripes in the Atmosphere of a Brown Dwarf
A planet-hunting satellite’s observations of the nearby system Luhman 16 AB reveal bands of clouds, high-speed jets, and polar vortices.
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The Closest Black Hole Is 1,000 Light-Years Away
An unseen object—probably a black hole—orbits with two normal stars in our cosmic neighborhood.
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Record-Setting Winds on a Nearby Brown Dwarf
Infrared and radio observations reveal zonal winds moving faster than 2,000 kilometers per hour on a “failed star” in our celestial neighborhood.
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Hot White Dwarfs May Reveal Cold Gas Giants
The gaseous atmospheres of giant planets may evaporate and accrete onto the dense surfaces of white dwarfs, providing astronomers a new way to detect hidden exoplanets.
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Dust Older Than the Sun Sheds Light on Galactic History
A small pile of dust grains older than the Sun brings new evidence about the rate at which stars are born in the Milky Way.
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Interstellar Visitors Could Export Terrestrial Life to Other Stars
A handful of interstellar objects and long-period comets could have scooped up microorganisms from Earth and carried them to worlds around other stars.