Related papers: Will Betelguese Explode?
I review recent progress on understanding eruptions of unstable massive stars, with particular attention to the diversity of observed behavior in extragalatic optical transient sources that are generally associated with giant eruptions of…
We present a scenario of formation of strange stars due to spin-down of {\it rapidly rotating} neutron stars left after supernova explosions . By assuming a process where the total baryon mass is conserved but the angular momentum is lost…
Rotation plays a major role in the evolution of massive stars. A revised grid of stellar evolutionary tracks accounting for rotation has recently been released by the Geneva group and implemented into the Starburst99 evolutionary synthesis…
This is a personal review of various issues related to massive photometric and astrometric searches. A complete inventory of variable stars down to almost any magnitude limit will improve our understanding of the stellar evolution and the…
Cometary outgassing can produce torques that change the spin state of the nucleus, influencing the evolution and lifetimes of comets (1,2). If these torques spin up the rotation to the point that centripetal forces exceed the material…
The observation of neutrinos from Supernova 1987A has confirmed the theoretical conjecture that these particles play a crucial role during the collapse of the core of a massive star. Only one per cent of the energy they carry away from the…
On February 23, 1987 we collected 24 neutrinos from the explosion of a blue super-giant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud confirming the basic paradigm of core-collapse supernova. During the many years we have been waiting for a repeat of…
The LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors carried out the first half of their third observing run from April through October 2019. During this period, they detected 39 new signals from the coalescence of black holes or neutron stars,…
The current picture of the collapse and explosion of massive stars and the formation of neutron stars is reviewed. According to the favored scenario, however by no means proven and undisputed, neutrinos deposit the energy of the explosion…
We have used the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Millimeter Array to obtain a map of the J = (1-0) CO emission from the circumstellar shell around HD 179821, a highly evolved G-type star which will probably explode as a supernova in the next…
It is difficult to establish the properties of massive stars that explode as supernovae. The electromagnetic emission during the first minutes to hours after the emergence of the shock from the stellar surface conveys important information…
Every supernova hitherto observed has been considered to be the terminal explosion of a star. Moreover, all supernovae with absorption lines in their spectra show those lines decreasing in velocity over time, as the ejecta expand and thin,…
Variable A in M33 is a member of a rare class of highly luminous, evolved stars near the upper luminosity boundary that show sudden and dramatic shifts in apparent temperature due to the formation of optically thick winds in high mass loss…
Observing the stars in our night sky tells us that giant, supergiant and hypergiant stars hold an unique importance in the understanding of stellar populations. Theoretical stellar models predict a rich tapestry of evolved stars. These…
The post-asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase is arguably one of the least understood phases of the evolution of low- and intermediate- mass stars. The recent post-AGB evolutionary sequences computed by Miller Bertolami (2016) are at least…
We present results from the occultation of Betelgeuse by asteroid (319) Leona on December 12, 2023, observed using a 64x64 pixel Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) array mounted on a 10-inch telescope at the AstroCamp Observatory in…
October 2004 marks the 400th anniversary of the sighting of SN 1604, now marked by the presence of an expanding nebulosity known as Kepler's supernova remnant. Of the small number of remnants of historical supernovae, Kepler's remnant…
Very massive stars occasionally expel material in colossal eruptions, driven by continuum radiation pressure rather than blast waves. Some of them rival supernovae in total radiative output, and the mass loss is crucial for subsequent…
One promising method to test progenitor models for Type Ia supernovae is to identify surviving companion stars in historical supernova remnants. A surviving companion will have been strongly affected by its interaction with the supernova…
The core of a massive star (M > 8 Msun) eventually collapses. This implosion usually triggers a supernova (SN) explosion that ejects most of the stellar envelope and leaves behind a neutron star (NS) with a mass of up to about 2 Msun.…