This post explores the star Sirius A and its companion white dwarf, Sirius B. Discovered in 1862, Sirius B is a dense remnant of a larger star. The post discusses mass transfer between the two stars and explains the formation of white dwarfs. Sirius B’s density, surface temperature, and estimated age of 150 million years are also highlighted.
We often just assume that our Earth is a puny little rock and these massive objects meander around the galaxy swallowing up unsuspecting planets. This is not the case, black holes can have massive mass but are only physically very small, as are neutron stars and white dwarfs.
A light hearted look at how you might make a blackhole if you happen to have a large star handy.
The Pleiades are a fascinating star cluster that is easily spotted not far from the Hyades cluster in Taurus and is visible in the Southern Hemisphere summer, Northern Hemisphere winter.
Supernovae cause the biggest explosions in the universe, often out shining their host galaxies. There’s plenty of flavours of supernova and they aren’t all just big stars blowing up.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released the second batch of data collected by the Gaia satellite revealing the positions of around 1.7 billion stars.
(And we can do something about it.)
Life needs CHNOPS, the six essential elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and Sulphur. Curiosity found them on ancient Mars, but a new study shows Earth was born without them. Only a lucky impact with Theia made our world habitable. In contrast, Venus never stood a chance. Meet the three planetary siblings and discover why only Earth became a cradle for life.
Mars’s mantle contains ancient fragments up to 4km wide from its formation—preserved like geological fossils from the planet’s violent early history.
Cosmic rays are hitting the atmosphere constantly. One of the products of the collisions is muons, and we can detect muons on the surface of the Earth to learn about the cosmic rays.
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