red giant

The yellow star WOH G64 that may become a supernova. Credit: ESO / L. Calçada, CC BY

One of the biggest known stars may be approaching the final stage of its life – a supernova

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A new study published in Nature Astronomy provides evidence that WOH G64, one of the largest known stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, has transitioned from a red giant to a rare yellow supergiant — a transition
A red giant star and a white dwarf orbit each other in a nova animation similar to that of T corona borealis. The red giant is a large ball in shades of red, orange and white, with the side facing the white dwarf being in lighter shades. The white dwarf is hidden in a bright white and yellow glow, representing an accretion disk around the star. A stream of material, shown as a diffuse cloud of red, flows from the red giant to the white dwarf. When the red giant passes behind the white dwarf, a nova explosion occurs on the white dwarf, creating a ball of ejected novae material shown in bright orange. After the fog dissipates, a small white dot remains, indicating that the white dwarf survived the eruption. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Don't miss it: in the coming months, a nova eruption is expected to occur that will be visible to the naked eye

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The T Corona Borealis system includes a white dwarf—an Earth-sized remnant of a star with a mass similar to that of our Sun—and an ancient red giant whose hydrogen has been sucked up by a force
An artist's rendering of the planet 8 Ursae Minoris b - also known as "The Goddess" - within the debris field after a violent merger of two stars. The planet may have survived the merger, but it is also possible that it is an entirely new planet formed from the fragments. Illustration: Kek Observatory/Adam Makarenko

A large planet surprisingly orbits a star that was supposed to destroy it

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The TESS space telescope discovered a planet that survived a merger between two stars as the merged star swelled to become a red giant
The planetary nebula NGC 3918, a bright cloud of colored gas in the constellation, about 4,900 light-years from Earth as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo: NASA/ESA

A celestial eye turns a piercing gaze to the Hubble Space Telescope that photographed it

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