Stars articles from across Nature Portfolio

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.

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

Methane emission from a very cool brown dwarf, perhaps arising from an aurora, has been detected in James Webb Space Telescope observations.

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.

A state-of-the-art simulation reveals that the long-lasting 10 MK plasma in solar active regions can be heated by magnetic reconnections driven by continuous flux emergence that repeatedly deposit impulsive heating into the coronal plasma.

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.

The size distribution of solid grains in dense clouds is a key parameter to constrain in order to understand grain growth, which influences the nature and timescale of the formation of protoplanets. A JWST study has quantified the grain size distribution by modelling the spectral absorptions arising from ice components of grains before protostellar collapse.