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Stars are large balls of plasma, predominantly hydrogen and helium. The birth, evolution and death of stars are of particular research interest. Other important topics include understanding the internal processes, such as fusion, that generate great quantities of radiation and the gravitational interactions between stars.
Simple analytic estimates and detailed numerical calculations show that the solar dynamo begins near the surface, rather than at the much-deeper tachocline.
Simulated close encounters between planetary systems and other stars reveal that outer giant planets on wide orbits tend to be ejected, with a fraction of them forming bound pairs. This scenario would lead to a population of free-floating binary planets in dense stellar environments
Analysis of the energy budget of a sample of 54 well-observed stripped-envelope supernovae of all sub-types shows statistically significant, largely model-independent, observational evidence for a non-radioactive power source in most of them.
Stellar winds of main-sequence stars are extremely important for the evolution of both stars and planets, yet they are challenging to detect. Here a detection of charge-exchange X-ray emission from stellar winds from three main-sequence stars is presented, along with derived mass-loss rates.
An outstanding discrepancy between observations and models of stellar limb darkening is resolved here by the inclusion of stellar surface magnetism in models. This will enable an improved characterization of transiting exoplanets.
Analysis of archival XMM-Newton data yields measurements of stellar wind emission from three star systems, illustrating a direct method to determine the mass-loss rates of late-type main-sequence stars.