Until now, in 2022, astronomers have done a pretty good job in uncovering many secrets of the Cosmos. At first, humanity thought that our planet is pretty much all that exists and that the Sun and the stars are just spots in some kind of dark ceiling meant for illuminating us.
A bit later, mankind discovered that there are countless other giant spheres out there, whether we’re talking about planets, stars, moons, and so on. In the early 1920s, the great American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that there are countless other galaxies in the Universe besides our Milky Way. That was a revolutionizing discovery for astronomy.
But the search for answers still continues even today, as scientists are asking more profound questions about dark matter, dark energy, the Big Bang, the emergence and evolution of life, and so on.
“New” nebulae are available
Nebulae are also interesting cosmic objects that will firstly impress you due to their looks. They’re practically nurseries of new stars, and they consist of huge clouds of dust and gas located between stars.
According to SciTechDaily.com, amateur astronomers have contributed to the discovery of a new class of galactic nebulae, along with an international team of astronomers that were led by Stefan Kimeswenger from the Department of Astro and Particle Physics.
As a premiere in astronomy, the scientists found evidence for the existence of a fully developed shell of a CE, meaning a common envelope system. This refers to the phase of the common envelope for a binary star system.
Stefan Kimeswenger declared, as quoted by SciTechDaily.com:
Toward the end of their lives, normal stars inflate into red giant stars. Since a very large fraction of stars are in binary stars, this affects the evolution at the end of their lives. In close binary systems, the inflating outer part of a star merges as a common envelope around both stars. However, inside this gas envelope the cores of the two stars are practically undisturbed and follow their evolution like independent single stars.
As cited by the same source, Kimeswenger explains:
These envelopes are of great importance for our understanding of the evolution of stars in their final phase. Moreover, they help us to understand how they enrich the interstellar space with heavy elements, which are then in turn important for the evolution of planetary systems, such as our own.
The new study was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
