Colliding red giant prime suspect for luminous red nova outburst
Thursday, July 9, 2015 - 05:30
in Astronomy & Space
Observations of a rare astronomical phenomenon, called a luminous red nova, suggest that this bright outburst was caused by a red giant colliding with another star. Astronomers used the Liverpool Telescope to track the outburst over several months and hunted through the Hubble Space Telescope archive to identify possible progenitors. Dr Steven Williams will present the results at the National Astronomy Meeting 2015 in Llandudno on Thursday 9th July.