Never-before-seen 'old smoker' stars surprise astronomers
Astronomers spotted a new type of aging giant red star that remains quiet for decades before belching out clouds of smoke at the center of the Milky Way.
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Astronomers spotted a new type of aging giant red star that remains quiet for decades before belching out clouds of smoke at the center of the Milky Way.
While monitoring around a billion Milky Way stars over 10 years, astronomers discovered a new ancient red star type along with a bunch of violently erupting newborn protostars.
Nearing the end of their life, they sit quietly for long periods of time, barely noticeable, before suddenly puffing out a cloud of smoke.Then abruptly the stars would become between 40 to 100 times dimmer, sometimes so faint that the telescope's infrared vision could barely spot them.
The image shows "luminous regions" around a newborn star in a strikingly high resolution.
The findings also showed that over the span of millions of years, the majority of young stars in the compact galactic core moved farther apart.