The Secret Lives of Stars (September 2004)
Special Editions

Cover; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Table of Contents; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

Exposé on the Stars; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Mariette DiChristina; 1 Page(s)

Letter from the Editor

The First Stars in the Universe; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Richard B. Larson and Volker Bromm; 8 Page(s)

Exceptionally massive and bright, the earliest stars changed the course of cosmic history

Fountains of Youth: Early Days in the Life of a Star; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Thomas P. Ray; 6 Page(s)

To make a star, gas and dust must fall inward. So why do astronomers see stuff streaming outward?

Companions to Young Stars; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Alan P. Boss; 8 Page(s)

The surprising finding that even the youngest stars commonly exist in sets of two or three has revised thinking about the birth of star systems

The Discovery of Brown Dwarfs; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Gibor Basri; 8 Page(s)

Less massive than stars but more massive than planets, brown dwarfs were long assumed to be rare. New sky surveys, however, show that the objects may be as common as stars

The Stellar Dynamo; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Elizabeth Nesme-Ribes, Sallie L. Baliunas and Dmitry Sokoloff; 8 Page(s)

Sunspot cycles--on other stars--are helping astronomers study the sun's variations and the ways they might affect Earth

The Fury of Solar Storms; The Secret Lives of Stars; by James L. Burch; 8 Page(s)

Shock waves from the sun can trigger severe turbulence in the space around Earth, endangering satellites and astronauts in orbit. A novel spacecraft is showing how space storms develop

When Stars Collide; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Michael Shara; 8 Page(s)

When two stars smash into each other, it can be a very pretty sight (as long as you're not too close by). These occurrences were once considered impossible, but they have turned out to be common in certain galactic neighborhoods

X-ray Binaries; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Edward P. J. van den Heuvel and Jan van Paradijs; 10 Page(s)

In these systems, ultradense neutron stars feed on their more sedate companions. Such stellar cannibalism produces brilliant outpourings of x-rays and drastically alters the evolution of both stars

Magnetars; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Chryssa Kouveliotou, Robert C. Duncan and Christopher Thompson; 8 Page(s)

Some stars are magnetized so intensely that they emit huge bursts of magnetic energy and alter the very nature of the quantum vacuum

Supersoft X-ray Stars and Supernovae; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Peter Kahabka, Edward P. J. van den Heuvel and Saul A. Rappaport; 8 Page(s)

Several years ago astronomers came across a new type of star that spews out unusually low energy x-rays. These so-called supersoft sources are now thought to be white dwarf stars that cannibalize their stellar companions and then, in many cases, explode

Binary Neutron Stars; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Tsvi Piran; 8 Page(s)

These paired stellar remnants supply exquisite confirmations of general relativity. Their inevitable collapse produces what may be the strongest explosions in the universe

The Brightest Explosions in the Universe; The Secret Lives of Stars; by Neil Gehrels, Luigi Piro and Peter J. T. Leonard; 8 Page(s)

Every time a gamma-ray burst goes off, a black hole is born