Astronomers have obtained remarkably detailed images of two stellar explosions -- called novae -- just days after they began.

What can imaging supernovae (plural for supernova) explosions teach astronomers about their behavior and physical characteristics? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to ...

Some white dwarfs in rapid binary orbits are far hotter and larger than theory predicts. Researchers found that powerful tidal forces between them generate enough heat to inflate their sizes and ...

White dwarfs are the dense remnants of stars and operate as cosmic labs for astronomers. When these white dwarfs collect enough material from a companion star, they can explode as a Type Ia supernova ...

In an ancient star system expected to be stable and dormant, scientists found a 3 billion-year-old white dwarf star still tearing apart massive quantities of rock. “The rate we’ve seen rock consumed ...

Impression of the 6.9 minute double white dwarf binary J1539+5027, composed of a tidally heated white dwarf (yellow) and its more compact companion (blue). It is about to start mass transferring.

White dwarf stars are the final evolutionary stage of stars like our Sun. After exhausting their nuclear fuel, these stars shed their outer layers and collapse into extremely dense, Earth-sized ...

Impression of the 6.9 minute double white dwarf binary J1539+5027, composed of a tidally heated white dwarf (yellow) and its more compact companion (blue). It is about to start mass transferring.

In the hunt for extraterrestrial life, we usually look for planets orbiting sun-like stars and icy moons. But there is another possible candidate—planets circling white dwarfs, the hot, dense remnants ...

NASA says its Hubble Space Telescope has captured evidence of a white dwarf star consuming the remnants of a Pluto-like object - a scenario that may predict what will happen to planets in our own ...

Astronomers have detected the chemical fingerprint of a frozen, water-rich planetary fragment being devoured by a white dwarf star, offering the clearest evidence yet that icy, life-delivering objects ...