What is the origin of the letters used in star classification? Why didn't astronomers use ABCD? J. HaldimanChicago, Illinois Stellar spectral types originally followed alphabetical order. But as ...

To understand how we classify and differentiate the stars we see in the sky, we first need to understand how they are born and change throughout their lives. Star formation begins with a massive cloud ...

Rarest Stars in the Universe: Stars come in many forms, but some types are so rare that only a handful exist in our galaxy. For example, O-type stars account for just 0.00003% of the stars near the ...

What can binary stars comprised of two different types of stars teach astronomers about stellar evolution? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal hopes to address as a team ...

Astronomers have discovered the first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars -- 'dead' remnants and 'living' stars -- in young star clusters. This breakthrough offers new insights on an extreme ...

One of the main questions in exoplanet science concerns M dwarfs (red dwarfs) and the habitability of exoplanets that orbit them. These stars are known for their prolific and energetic flaring, and ...

This image from the ALMA telescope shows star system HD101584 and the complex gas clouds surrounding the binary. It is the result of a pair of stars sharing a common outer layer during their last ...