BinaryStars
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Rare red nova explosion could add a star to the sky in 2022
There is much still to learn about the universe, and red novas remain one of its mysteries. It's thought these explosive events, named for their red glow, are the result of binary stars finally merging after eons of cosmic courting. That's the prevailing theory, anyway, but the rare event has only been observed a handful of times. Our understanding of this stellar event, as well as the lifecycle of stars in general, could improve significantly if the prediction of Calvin College astronomer Larry Molnar proves true. He believes he's spotted a duo of stars that are on the cusp of merging, becoming a red nova in 2022, "give or take a year." It's not just exciting for the research community, though, as the explosion should be so energetic that we'll be able to see it in the night sky with the naked eye.
Scientists find the largest known planet to orbit two stars
The notion of planets in a Tatooine-like system with two or more stars isn't strange (they've been known since 1993), but a truly massive planet hasn't been seen before... until now. Scientists using NASA's Kepler space telescope have discovered Kepler-1647b, the largest known planet to orbit two stars (aka a circumbinary planet). The 4.4 billion year old gas giant is about as large as Jupiter, and orbits at a much further distance than other confirmed planets with a 1,107-day trip. That's still much closer than Jupiter, which takes 12 years, but it remains a rarity given our current knowledge.
Astronomers theorize what it's like when worlds (and black holes) collide
Tight binary solar systems are inhabited in science fiction -- remember the Star Wars world of Tatooine -- but humanity might find such planets inhospitable over the long term, and not just because of the heat. Using NASA's Spitzer telescope, scientists discovered clouds of dust around three such binary systems far too recent to come from the stars themselves, and theorize that as the stars attract one another over time and get closer and closer together, their respective orbiting planets may get closer as well, and crash into one another catastrophically. Meanwhile, when supermassive black holes dance in pairs, they can merge as one, and astrophysicists have recently simulated how such a joining might appear on our telescopes. According to a team of US and Canadian researchers, the pair may emit strong jets of electromagnetic radiation before they merge, which twist around one another and throw off gravitational waves that can help pinpoint the source. Speaking of sources, we've got plenty of those immediately below if you'd like to read more.
