
Starts With A Bang #130 - the initial mass function of stars
One of the most foundational questions we know how to ask in astronomy is simply this: given a cloud of gas of a given mass, what types of s...
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One of the most foundational questions we know how to ask in astronomy is simply this: given a cloud of gas of a given mass, what types of s...

We often think about the Solar System as being our own cosmic backyard, and in many ways, it is: these are the closest objects to us in all...

Whenever a new star forms, several processes appear to be nearly universal. A cloud of cold molecular gas contracts, fragments, and rapidly...

When most of us were children, and we went to a rural area with clear skies overhead at night, we were all greeted by the same familiar sigh...

Out there in the Universe, we're most aware of what we see: of all the forms of light that arrive in our eyes, instruments, telescopes, and...

One of the most exciting developments in modern astrophysics isn't merely our standard "concordance cosmology" model, but rather the cracks...

All across the Universe, stars are dying through a variety of means. They can directly collapse to a black hole, they can become core-collap...

One of the great discoveries to be made out there in the grand scheme of things is alien life: the first detection of life that originated,...

It's no secret that the Universe and the objects present within it, as we see them all today, have changed over time as the Universe has gro...

It's hard to believe, but it was only back in the early 1990s that we discovered the very first planet orbiting a star other than our own Su...

Out there in the Universe, somewhere, a second example of an inhabit world or planet likely awaits us. It could be some other planet or moon...

Perhaps the strongest evidence we've ever acquired in support of the Big Bang has been the discovery of the leftover radiation from its earl...

When we search for life in the Universe, it makes sense to look for planets that are similar to Earth. To most of us, those signatures would...

It might seem hard to fathom, but it hasn't even been ten full years since advanced LIGO, the gravitational wave observatories that brought...

Out there in the Universe, each star represents an opportunity: a chance for a stellar system to develop that just might possess something r...

Sure, it's easy to look out at the Universe and take stock of what we find. Although spiral and elliptical galaxies house the majority of th...

Out there in the Universe, there are tremendous, uncountable numbers of planetary systems just waiting to be discovered. But stellar systems...

When it comes to stars, most of them, for most of their lives, behave in a very similar fashion to the Sun. In their cores, they undergo nuc...

When we look out at our home galaxy, the Milky Way, we have to recognize that even though it's been growing and evolving for 13.8 billion ye...

In this Universe, there are a few objects that are just larger, and a few events that are just more powerful, than others. As far as size go...