Sometimes, stars in binary systems are so close that they actually touch, eventually leading to a merger that may be a luminous red nova — a class of explosion in between classical novae and supernova.
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer gives a new look at 4U 1630–47, a binary system likely containing a star and a black hole, allowing for new insights into the nature of the X-ray-emitting plasma.
The ice shell on Saturn’s moon Enceladus appears to be thicker at the equator that at the poles, which simulations suggest is due to a non-equilibrium state or tidal dissipation.
The existence of runaway-greenhouse planets may create a discontinuity in radius–density space, and the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillation of stars (PLATO) mission has the potential to detect this discontinuity.
Several purported high-redshift active galactic nuclei identified in JWST images have been revealed via spectroscopy to instead be brown dwarfs, including the most distant brown dwarf yet discovered.
Brown dwarf WISE J085510.83−071442.5 has an effective temperature of just 285K — that’s a comfortable springtime temperature of 53℉ (12℃) — and a seemingly cloudless atmosphere.