SciShow
The Mystery of the Star That Wasn't There
In the 1970s, astronomers discovered a mysterious source of gamma rays that, 50 years later, still hasn’t revealed all of its secrets.
PBS
How Stars Destroy Each Other
Our galaxy is full of dysfunctional stellar relationships. With more than half of all stars existing in binary orbits, it’s inevitable that many stellar remnants will end up in parasitic spirals with their partners. Today we’re going to...
SciShow
How Two Dead Stars Sparked a New Field of Astronomy
Pulsars are more than just cool blinking lights shining across the universe. The discovery of the first binary pulsar paved the way for gravitational wave astronomy astronomy today.
Crash Course
Neutron Stars
In the aftermath of a 8 – 20 solar mass star’s demise we find a weird little object known as a neutron star. Neutrons stars are incredibly dense, spin rapidly, and have very strong magnetic fields. Some of them we see as pulsars,...
SciShow
Starquakes Could Be Behind 3 Cosmic Mysteries
We’ve detected seismic activity all around the solar system, from earthquakes to moonquakes, marsquakes to venusquakes. But the most dramatic quakes we know of actually happen on stars!
PBS
Strange Stars
What happens when matter can't get any denser yet somehow does? The answer - it becomes strange. Strange Stars may be the most massive stellar remnant that is just shy of forming a black hole. And they could be even cooler than black holes.
SciShow
We're Turning Pulsars into Galactic GPS!
Scientists have thought for awhile that pulsars could be used as a sort of galactic positioning system, and astronomers have published the most advanced topographical map of Titan to date!
SciShow
The First Exoplanets Were Found Around... a Pulsar
The first time scientists found exoplanets, they were orbiting something very different from our sun: a pulsar.
SciShow
Spotted One of the Fastest Pulsars Ever Seen SciShow News.mp4
Astronomers have found a new celestial object, and it's moving really, really fast!
SciShow
The Oldest Planet Ever Discovered
We've only found one planet in a globular cluster, where gravitational interactions should usually rip baby planets apart, but that's not all that excites astronomers about PSR 1620-26 b.
SciShow
We've Never Seen a Pulsar Explode Like This - SciShow News
Spacebit is sending crawling, jumping, mini-robots to the moon, and researchers have witnessed a pulsar emit a very cool combination of traits in its most recent flare.
SciShow
A Farewell to the Arecibo Observatory | SciShow News
On December 1, 2020, Arecibo's long-story came crashing down to an end. While it's sad to see this monumental observatory go, it's worth looking back over the many discoveries it's made over the last 60 years.
SciShow
The Star That Trolled Astronomers
In 1967, a star was discovered that seemed to be different than most stars, . . . it looked like it was blinking.
NASA
Gravity Assist: A New Set of X-Ray Eyes is Launching, with Martin Weisskopf
NASA is about to launch a new spacecraft to look at the universe in X-ray light. The Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, IXPE, will look at extreme objects such as black holes, neutron stars, and supernovae, asking fundamental questions...
NASA
New Simulation Creates "Pulsar in a Box"
Scientists studying what amounts to a computer-simulated "pulsar in a box" are gaining a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy environment around spinning neutron stars, also called pulsars. The model traces the paths...
Next Animation Studio
Astronomers find ‘spider stars’ that devour their companions
Astronomers have discovered a new type of “spider star” — violent pulsars that shred material from companion stars
NASA
NASA’s NICER Finds X-ray Boosts in the Crab Pulsar’s Radio Bursts
Scientists using data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station have discovered X-ray surges accompanying radio bursts from the pulsar in the Crab Nebula. The finding...
NASA
NASA Missions Team Up to Study Unique Magnetar Outburst
On April 28, a supermagnetized stellar remnant known as a magnetar blasted out a simultaneous mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before. The flare-up included the first fast radio burst (FRB) ever seen from within our Milky...
NASA
NASA's NICER Tests Matter's Limits
Matter in the hearts of neutron stars – dense remnants of exploded massive stars – takes the most extreme form we can measure. Now, thanks to data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), an X-ray telescope on the...
NASA
NASA | Fermi Finds a Youthful Pulsar Among Ancient Stars
In three years, NASA's Fermi has detected more than 100 gamma-ray pulsars, but something new has appeared. Among a type of pulsar with ages typically numbering a billion years or more, Fermi has found one that appears to have been born...
NASA
NASA | A Black Widow Pulsar Consumes its Mate
Black widow spiders and their Australian cousins, known as redbacks, are notorious for an unsettling tendency to kill and devour their male partners. Astronomers have noted similar behavior among two rare breeds of binary system that...
NASA
NASA’s NICER Reveals 1st-ever Pulsar Surface Map
Scientists have reached a new frontier in our understanding of pulsars, the dense, whirling remains of exploded stars, thanks to observations from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER). Data from this X-ray telescope...
NASA
NASA | SEXTANT: Navigating by Cosmic Beacon
SEXTANT: Navigating by Cosmic Beacon Imagine a technology that would allow space travelers to transmit gigabytes of data per second over interplanetary distances or to navigate to Mars and beyond using powerful beams of light emanating...
NASA
NICER Mission Overview
The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) payload, destined for the exterior of the space station, will study the physics of neutron stars, providing new insight into their nature and behavior. These stars are called...