<h2>Lonely Planet</h2>
When stars explode and die, they tend to swallow and incinerate everything around them. But sometimes exoplanets survive, left to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/hunting-planets-orbiting-dead-stars">drift the galaxy</a> as celestial orphans.
Now, a team of astronomers from the U.S. and Europe determined which planets are most likely to survive the deaths of the white dwarf stars they orbit, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/486/3/3831/5482390?redirectedFrom=fulltext">according to research</a> published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Small, dense, and distant exoplanets have the best odds, according to the research, which could help astronomers <a href="https://futurism.com/planets-dont-orbit-stars">pinpoint even more planets</a> in the remote cosmos.
<h2>Celestial Orphans</h2>
The scientists simulated these destructive events and found a direct link between survival and exoplanet size and density. The big, loosely-packed units of the pack were obliterated by their dying stars while the tiny, dense exoplanets survived, as long as they were orbiting at least one-third as far from their stars as Mercury is from the Sun.
&#8220;Our study prompts astronomers to look for rocky planets close to — but just outside of — the destruction radius of the white dwarf,&#8221; University of Warwick physicist Dimitri Veras said in a <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190514115831.htm">university-published press release</a>. &#8220;So far observations have focused on this inner region, but our study demonstrates that rocky planets can survive tidal interactions with the white dwarf in a way which pushes the planets slightly outward.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190514115831.htm">Small, hardy planets most likely to survive death of their stars</a> [University of Warwick newsroom via ScienceDaily]
More on exoplanets: <a href="https://futurism.com/planets-dont-orbit-stars">These Lonely Planets Drift Through Space Without Orbiting Stars</a>

"Our study prompts astronomers to look for rocky planets close to — but just outside of — the destruction radius of the white dwarf."

These are the planets that survive the deaths of their stars

Survival Guide

Small, densely-packed exoplanets are most likely to survive when their stars die. The findings give astronomers new places to look for new planets.

These Are the Planets That Survive the Deaths of Their Stars

When a star dies, it's the small, dense planets that tend to survive.

<h2>Space Invader</h2>
One of the stars in the Big Dipper constellation may not have originated within the Milky Way. Instead, the star — conveniently named J1124+4535 — likely came from a galaxy that merged with ours some 10 billion years ago, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/65452-weirdo-star-from-another-galaxy.html">according to Live Science</a>.
The unusual chemical signature and metal composition of the star clued in a team of Chinese and Japanese astronomers that the star likely <a href="https://futurism.com/stars-galaxies-dark-matter">came from a dwarf galaxy</a> that sailed too near our own, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0764-5">according to research</a> published last month in the journal Nature Astronomy.
<h2>One Of Billions</h2>
The collision is thought to have introduced billions of stars to the Milky Way, many of which are older than those native to our galaxy, per Live Science.
The scientists who spotted this celestial visitor write that there&#8217;s no easy way to tell just how many or which stars came from other galaxies. But with this new discovery, they at least have a new starting point.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.livescience.com/65452-weirdo-star-from-another-galaxy.html">A Star in the Big Dipper Is an Alien Invader</a> [Live Science]
More on space: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/stellar-stream-milky-way">Scientists Found a &#8220;River of Stars&#8221; Flowing Through The Milky Way</a>

The Big Dipper is hiding an interstellar visitor.

This star drifted into the Milky Way from another galaxy

Intergalactic Visitor

Scientists suspect that one of the stars in the Big Dipper isn't native to the Milky Way. Instead, it likely got sucked up in a galactic collision,

This Star Drifted Into the Milky Way From Another Galaxy

An unusual star likely joined the Milky Way after a galactic merger.

<h2>Starry Sight</h2>
On the outskirts of the Milky Way, about 14,000 light years from Earth, is a massive region highly conducive to star formation. But because it&#8217;s so far away and hidden behind clouds of dust and gas, astronomers have never been able to get a good look at it.
With a newly commissioned radio telescope, though, an international team of astronomers has now created a <a href="https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2019/04/15/firstlook" target="_blank" rel="noopener">higher-resolution map</a> of the area — and in the process, they found that one subregion is inexplicably far more efficient at star formation than the others.
<h2>Generation Why?</h2>
According to a <a href="https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2019/04/15/firstlook" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>, the team&#8217;s research, which has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, led to the discovery that the CTB 102 region has a star formation efficiency of between 5 and 10 percent — about the same as the Milky Way&#8217;s other giant molecular clouds.
However, one subregion of CTB 102 is far more efficient at forming stars, boasting an efficiency between 17 and 37 percent depending on how the team calculated the subregion&#8217;s mass.
Researcher Charles Kerton said in the press release that the team isn&#8217;t sure why this one subregion is so adept at forming stars — but they speculate it might have something to do with the kind of interstellar material within in. To find out for sure, though, they&#8217;d need to conduct further studies.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2019/04/15/firstlook" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Astronomers take first, high-resolution look at huge star-forming region of Milky Way</a> [Iowa State University]
More on stars: <a href="https://futurism.com/universe-first-stars-big-bang" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientists Now Know When the First Stars Formed in the Universe</a>

A new high-res map yielded an unexpected discovery.

Scientists find mysterious star-forming factory in Milky Way

Stellar Discovery

Astronomers have discovered that one subregion of the Milky Way is far more efficient at star formation than the others — and they don't know why.

Scientists Find Mysterious Star-Forming Factory In Milky Way

Everything is star-stuff — but especially this place!

<h2>Dead Star</h2>
Sometimes when a star dies, the planets that orbited it survive, either <a href="https://futurism.com/planets-dont-orbit-stars">freely floating through the galaxy</a> or orbiting whatever&#8217;s left of their former star.
Normally, the giant cloud of dust given off as the star dies obscures these lonely planets. But Jason Nordhaus, a NASA-funded astrophysicist at the Rochester Institute of Technology, wants to solve the mystery of what happens to planets after their stars die.
<h2>Lonely Planet</h2>
To peer through the clouds and spot these hidden stars and planets, Nordhaus developed software tools that can pinpoint their whereabouts, according to a <a href="http://www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=68936">university-published press release</a>. In the future, he hopes to predict which planets will survive the death of their host star and which will be obliterated in the process.
&#8220;The deaths of ordinary stars are marked by extraordinary transitions,” Nordhaus said in the release. &#8220;However, large amounts of dust that mask these companions make them difficult to directly detect. We will continue to uncover the nature of these hidden companions and pin down where they orbit in these systems.&#8221;
<h2>Rare Puppis</h2>
Nordhaus has already found at least one hidden planet: a previously-undiscovered planet orbiting the <a href="https://futurism.com/1-evergreen-the-sun-the-earth-and-a-few-billion-years-will-our-planet-still-be-around">dying star L2 Puppis</a>. That prediction was later confirmed by data from the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/treasure-trove-planets-hiding-dust">Atacama Large Millimeter Array</a>, a network of powerful telescopes in Chile, according to the press release.
&#8220;This helps us understand the fate of our own solar system, the fates of other star systems in the galaxy, and improve our understanding of how stars and planets interact,&#8221; Nordhaus said of his work.
READ MORE: <a href="http://www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=68936">RIT astrophysicist develops technique to locate undiscovered planets, celestial bodies</a> [RIT University News]
More on dying stars: <a href="https://futurism.com/astronomer-birth-black-hole">Astronomers May Have Just Spotted the Birth of a Black Hole</a>

Computer simulations can help reveal celestial orphans.

This scientist is hunting for planets that orbit dead stars

Celestial Orphans

This astrophysicist at the Rochester Institute of Technology is hunting for planets that are still orbiting dead stars. Is the universe full of them?

This Scientist Is Hunting for Planets That Orbit Dead Stars

Is the universe filled with lonely planets orbiting dead stars?

<h2>Giant Crystal</h2>
In their old age, according to new research, white dwarf stars will cool into enormous and super-heavy crystal orbs — the likely fate of our Sun, in about 10 billion years.
&#8220;All white dwarfs will crystallize at some point in their evolution, although more massive white dwarfs go through the process sooner,&#8221; lead researcher Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay, from the University of Warwick, said in a <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/thousands_of_stars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news release</a>. &#8220;This means that billions of white dwarfs in our galaxy have already completed the process and are essentially metallic crystal spheres in the sky.&#8221;
<h2>Mega Orb</h2>
The new research, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0791-x">published today</a> in the journal Nature, is based on observations from a European Space Agency spacecraft called <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/galaxy-orbiting-milky-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gaia</a>.
The Gaia readings showed an &#8220;overabundance&#8221; of white dwarf stars with colors and brightnesses that the objects&#8217; age or mass couldn&#8217;t explain. But models show that the readings could be explained if the insides of the stars had already started to harden into crystals.
<h2>Blast From the Past</h2>
Eventually, the paper predicts, white dwarf stars will cool into huge celestial orbs with cores made of crystallized oxygen and exteriors made of a diamond-like carbon crystal — a wintry vision of the aging universe, and one that confirms a longstanding theory among astronomers.
&#8220;This is the first direct evidence that white dwarfs crystallize, or transition from liquid to solid,&#8221; Tremblay said. &#8220;It was predicted 50 years ago that we should observe a pileup in the number of white dwarfs at certain luminosities and colors due to crystallization, and only now this has been observed.&#8221;
READ MOVE: <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/thousands_of_stars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thousands of Stars Turning Into Crystals</a> [The University of Warwick]
More on Gaia: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/galaxy-orbiting-milky-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientists Discover a “Ghost of a Galaxy” Orbiting the Milky Way</a>

In about 10 billion years, our Sun will harden into a giant crystal

Shine On

In about 10 billion years, our Sun will likely harden into a giant crystal orb — a fate that will be shared with many other white dwarf stars.

In About 10 Billion Years, Our Sun Will Harden Into a Giant Crystal

The aging universe will fill with the jewel-like corpses of ancient stars.

<h2>Star Light</h2>
For decades, astronomers have been trying to spot dark matter, an invisible substance that makes up <a href="https://futurism.com/one-step-closer-dark-matter">about 85 percent of the matter in the universe</a> and lends much of the gravitational force holding galaxies together. Figuring out how to find and study dark matter would give scientists a better understanding of how the universe formed and how it works today.
But in spite of its prevalence, much of what we know about dark matter comes from indirect measurements, collected by expensive equipment, that require serious mathematical gymnastics to interpret. Scientists <a href="https://futurism.com/astronomers-are-using-artificial-intelligence-to-search-for-gravitational-lenses">use gravitational lensing</a>, for example, to track dark matter by looking at the gravitational pull it exerts on nearby stars or planets.
Now, new research suggests there&#8217;s a simpler and cheaper way to measure dark matter. The new astronomical trick tracks the light given off by stars that have been ripped from their home galaxies — and NASA scientists say it gives them more accurate readings on the distribution of dark matter than ever before.
<h2>Star Bright</h2>
It turns out that scientists can get precise measurements on dark matter distribution by recording something called intracluster light, according to NASA research <a href="https://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/releases/science_papers/heic1820/heic1820a.pdf">published to the preprint server ArXiv in October</a>, that looked at intracluster light in images taken by the Hubble Telescope.
Intracluster light is the light given off by stars that are flung away when galaxies merge or travel near another. Rather than orbiting a galaxy&#8217;s core, these stars careen through the universe alone. But it turns out that the stars take some dark matter with them.
<h2>Take it Easy</h2>
And it turns out that measurements of intracluster light directly correlate to the amount of dark matter present in the area, according to the research. Studying these stars — which exist in a vacuum with their corresponding pockets of dark matter — is <a href="https://futurism.com/dark-matter-conflicting-results">much simpler and more straightforward</a> than analyzing all the dark matter that&#8217;s clumped together in a galaxy&#8217;s core.
&#8220;We have found a way to &#8216;see&#8217; dark matter,&#8221; University of New South Wales astronomer Mireia Montes, the lead author of the study, <a href="https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1820/">said in a press release</a>. &#8220;We have found that very faint light in galaxy clusters, the intracluster light, maps how dark matter is distributed.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1820/">Faint starlight in Hubble images reveals distribution of dark matter</a> [SpaceTelescope.org]
More on dark matter: <a href="https://futurism.com/dark-matter-ancient-galaxy">This Ancient Galaxy Was Loaded With Dark Matter</a>

Now studying dark matter is as simple as spotting visible stars.

Stars torn from galaxies let astronomers "see" dark matter

Spotted

Astronomers recently discovered a new technique that makes it much easier to detect and study how dark matter is distributed throughout the universe.

Stars Torn From Galaxies Let Astronomers “See” Dark Matter

The new technique gives astronomers the most accurate dark matter measurements to date.

<h2>It’s Too Quiet</h2>
You would never notice in the eerie, endless silence of deep space, but the stars that light up the night sky scream constant explosive roars as the nuclear reactions that power their cores and solar flares rumble out to their surface.
That stellar screaming creates surface vibrations on stars that asteroseismologists — researchers in a new scientific discipline — examine to learn about their subsurface activity. Now, artificial intelligence algorithms can help these asteroseismologists <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/140511/scientists-are-using-artificial-intelligence-to-see-inside-stars-using-sound-waves/">filter and make sense</a> of those vibrations, Universe Today reports — and understand how different types of stars behave.
<h2>Gazing Into the Abyss</h2>
In research published to the preprint server ArXiv last week and approved for publication in the journal PASP Speciale Volume on Machine Learning, a team of scientists <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03639">trained deep learning AI systems</a> to simulate the activity of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-largest-ever-digital-survey-of-the-universe-just-mapped-billions-of-stars">well-understood stars</a>.
Using those simulations as reference material, the algorithm can make sense of the otherwise-indecipherable data coming from stars far off in the Milky Way.
<h2>Stardust</h2>
The reason it’s so hard to decipher these signals, aside from the obvious distance between earthling scientists and the stars outside our solar system, is because there’s a whole bunch of ­stuff out there that can interfere with their readings.
Often, things such as <a href="https://futurism.com/planets-dont-orbit-stars">a planet passing in the way</a> of the star can alter data in what seems like the same way. Only with the highly trained eye of these deep learning algorithms can these scientists actually get to the bottom of what’s going on — like understanding how a star&#8217;s magnetic field affects solar flares.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/140511/scientists-are-using-artificial-intelligence-to-see-inside-stars-using-sound-waves/">Scientists are using artificial intelligence to see inside stars using sound waves</a> [Universe Today]
More on space: <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-just-discovered-the-second-closest-exoplanet-to-earth">Scientists Just Discovered the Second-Closest Exoplanet to Earth</a>

In space, no one can hear you scream. But distant stars are still trying.

New AI is peering into the nuclear cores of distant stars

Eyes Up Here

Using a new AI system, researchers within the infant scientific discipline asteroseismology can learn more about the subsurface activity of distant stars.

New AI Is Peering Into the Nuclear Cores of Distant Stars

Now scientists can understand far-off stars better than ever before.

<h2>Old Kid on the Block</h2>
In the outer layers of the Milky Way is an old star, newly <a href="http://releases.jhu.edu/2018/11/05/johns-hopkins-scientist-finds-elusive-star-with-origins-close-to-big-bang/">discovered by Johns Hopkins University astronomers</a>, that might be one of the oldest in the universe.
New research which will soon be published in The Astrophysical Journal describes a star with the mouthful of a name, 2MASS J18082002-5104378 B. It&#8217;s about one-sixth the size of our sun and dates back 13.5 billion years — just 300 million years younger than <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/giant-magellan-telescope-construction">the entire universe</a>.
<h2>Old-School Metal</h2>
We know this star is so old because of its metal composition. As stars die and their leftover materials form new stars, the nuclear fusion reactions that power their cores give off heavy metals like gold and platinum. The more heavy metals, the more generations a given star must have been through.
But this star, still dimly twinkling, has such a small heavy metal content that astronomers think it comes from just the second generation of all the stuff in the universe — its celestial predecessor would have been formed in the Big Bang itself. For reference, our sun first emerged many generations after that, a 4.6 billion-year-old youngster compared to 2MASS.
<h2>I Wish I Might</h2>
This star is far older than anything else <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/black-hole-milky-way">found in our galaxy</a> so far, and its discovery opens the doors to finding even older stars.
That means we may soon learn more about how the Big Bang gave rise to the universe — and a better understanding of our own origins.
READ MORE: <a href="http://releases.jhu.edu/2018/11/05/johns-hopkins-scientist-finds-elusive-star-with-origins-close-to-big-bang/">Johns Hopkins Scientist Finds Elusive Star with Origins Close to Big Bang</a> [Johns Hopkins University]
More on old stars: <a href="https://futurism.com/universe-first-stars-big-bang">Scientists Now Know When the First Stars Formed in the Universe</a>

It's not polite to ask, but 2MASS is 13.5 billion years old.

An ancient star reveals our galaxy is older than we thought

OG Stardust

A newly-discovered star in our galaxy is only 300 million years younger than the universe itself. it's older than anything scientists expected to find.

An Ancient Star Reveals Our Galaxy Is Older Than We Thought

The star is mostly made of raw materials from the Big Bang.

<h2>Magnetic Activity</h2>
Astronomers have long understood that there is a link between a star’s magnetic activity and the amount of X-rays it emits. When stars are young, they are magnetically active, due to the fact that they undergo rapid rotation. But over time, the stars lose rotational energy and their magnetic fields weaken. Concurrently, their associated X-ray emissions also begin to drop.
Interestingly, this relationship between a star’s magnetic activity and X-ray emissions could be a means for finding potentially-habitable star systems. Hence why an international team led by researchers from Queen’s University Belfast conducted <a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2017/gj176/">a study</a> where they cataloged the X-ray activity of 24 Sun-like stars. In so doing, they were able to determine just how hospitable these star systems could be to life.
This study, titled “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/471/1/1012/3899119/An-improved-age-activity-relationship-for-cool?redirectedFrom=fulltext">An Improved Age-Activity Relationship for Cool Stars Older than a Gigayear</a>“, recently appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Led by Rachel Booth, a PhD student from the <a href="https://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php">Astrophysics Research Center at Queen’s University Belfast</a>, the team used data from NASA’s <a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/learn_cxc.html">Chandra X-ray Observatory</a> and the ESA’s <a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/field_guide.html">XMM-Newton</a> to examine how the X-ray brightness of 24 Sun-like stars changed over time.
<figure id="attachment_100970" style="width: 580px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-100970" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/09/eso1415a-580x362.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="362" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">This artist’s impression shows the magnetar in the very rich and young star cluster Westerlund 1. Image Source: ESO/L. Calçada</figcaption></figure>
To understand how stellar magnetic activity (and hence, X-ray activity) changes over time, astronomers require accurate age assessments for many different stars. This has been difficult in the past, but thanks to mission like NASA’s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html">Kepler Space Observatory</a> and the ESA’s <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/COROT">Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits</a> (CoRoT) mission, new and precise age estimates have become available in recent years.
<h2>Longevity and Luminosity</h2>
Using these age estimates, Booth and her colleagues relied on data from the <a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/index.html">Chandra X-ray observatory</a> and the <a href="http://sci.esa.int/xmm-newton/">XMM-Newton</a> obervatory to examine 24 nearby stars. These stars were all similar in mass to our Sun (a main sequence G-type yellow dwarf star) and at least 1 billion years of age. From this, they determined that there was a clear link between the star’s age and their X-ray emissions. As they state in their study:
<blockquote>“We find 14 stars with detectable X-ray luminosities and use these to calibrate the age-activity relationship. We find a relationship between stellar X-ray luminosity, normalized by stellar surface area, and age that is steeper than the relationships found for younger stars…” 
</blockquote>
In short, of the 24 stars in their sample, the team found that 14 had X-ray emissions that were discernible. From these, they were able to calculate the star’s ages and determine that there was a relationship between their longevity and luminosity. Ultimately, this demonstrated that stars like our Sun are likely to emit less high-energy radiation as they exceed 1 billion years in age.
&nbsp;
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And while the reason for this is not entirely clear, astronomers are currently exploring various possible causes. One possibility is that for older stars, the reduction in spin rate happens more quickly than it does for younger stars. Another possibility is that the X-ray brightness declines more quickly for older, more slowly-rotating stars than it does for younger, faster ones.
Regardless of the cause, the relationship between a star’s age and its X-ray emissions could provide astronomers and exoplanet hunters with another tool for gauging the possible habitability of a system. Wherever a G-type or K-type star is to be found, knowing the age of the star could help place constraints on the potential habitability of any planets that orbit it.

There's a clear link between the star’s age and their X-ray emissions.

X-Ray study shows older stars may be more supportive to life

Off World

Knowing the age of the star could help place constraints on the potential habitability of any planets that orbit it.

X-Ray Study Shows Older Stars May Be More Supportive to Life

Their findings could provide astronomers a tool for determining the habitability of a system.

<h2>Tracing How Energy Flows</h2>
One of the first three molecules to have been discovered in the <a href="http://espg.sr.unh.edu/ism/what1.html" target="_blank">interstellar medium</a> — the matter existing in the space between a galaxy&#8217;s star systems — is a carbon hydride ion (CH+). Since its discovery back in the early 1940s, this molecule has remained largely mysterious. For one, it seems to disappear quicker than other molecules while also being extremely reactive.
A team of astronomers has now shed light onto what exactly the mysterious CH+ does in space, specifically in turbulent cold gas reservoirs that surround the cosmic star formation known as starburst galaxies. Using the European Southern Observatory&#8217;s (ESO) <a href="http://eso.org/alma" target="_blank">Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)</a>, the researchers spotted strong signals of CH+ in five of the six starburst galaxies they studied, which included the so-called <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1012/" target="_blank">Cosmic Eyelash</a>.
<figure style="width: 820px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-98435 size-large aligncenter" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/08/eso1727a-1200x675.jpg" alt="Image credit: ESO" width="820" height="461" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Image credit: ESO</figcaption></figure>
“CH+ is a special molecule. It needs a lot of energy to form and is very reactive, which means its lifetime is very short and it can’t be transported far. CH+ therefore traces how energy flows in the galaxies and their surroundings,” ESO astronomer Martin Zwaan <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1727/?lang" target="_blank">said in a press release</a>.
<h2>Challenging Theories</h2>
Essentially, starburst galaxies &#8220;are among the most extreme star-forming engines in the Universe, producing stars over about 100 million years,&#8221; the researchers wrote in the study, which was published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v548/n7668/full/nature23298.html">Nature</a>. The faster rate of star formation is fueled by the large reservoirs of cold molecular gas that move towards the starburst core, while also experiencing feedback from surrounding stars or other galactic nuclei.
Studying this interplay was made even more possible by the detection of CH+, which revealed dense shock waves which are generated by hot, fast galactic winds that come from inside the starburst galaxies&#8217; star-forming regions. “With CH+, we learn that energy is stored within vast galaxy-sized winds and ends up as turbulent motions in previously unseen reservoirs of cold gas surrounding the galaxy,” said lead author Edith Falgarone, an astronomer at the <a href="http://www.ens.fr/" target="_blank">Ecole Normale Supérieure</a> and the <a href="https://www.obspm.fr/-observatoire-de-paris-.html?lang=en" target="_blank">Observatoire de Paris</a>, France.
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This explains how starburst galaxies are able to extend the rapid star formation period. &#8220;By driving turbulence in the reservoirs, these galactic winds extend the starburst phase instead of quenching it,&#8221; Falgrone explained. She also said that the discovery of CH+ surrounding star-forming events can lead to a new understanding of how stars and galaxies develop. CH+ can also work as a trace of energy on a galactic scale. She added that “Our results challenge the theory of galaxy evolution.&#8221;

This discovery hinges on one mysterious ion.

A team of astronomers detected strong signals of a carbon hydride ion (CH+) in areas surrounding starburst galaxies.

/Stars

Survival Guide

These Are the Planets That Survive the Deaths of Their Stars

Intergalactic Visitor

This Star Drifted Into the Milky Way From Another Galaxy

Stellar Discovery

Scientists Find Mysterious Star-Forming Factory In Milky Way

Celestial Orphans

This Scientist Is Hunting for Planets That Orbit Dead Stars

Shine On

In About 10 Billion Years, Our Sun Will Harden Into a Giant Crystal

Spotted

Stars Torn From Galaxies Let Astronomers “See” Dark Matter

Eyes Up Here

New AI Is Peering Into the Nuclear Cores of Distant Stars

OG Stardust

An Ancient Star Reveals Our Galaxy Is Older Than We Thought

Off World

X-Ray Study Shows Older Stars May Be More Supportive to Life

Off World

Scientists Just Discovered Molecules that Could Tell us the Origins of Our Galaxy

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