Dying star suffers ‘irregular heartbeats’

Some dying stars suffer from ‘irregular heartbeats’, research led by astronomers at the University of Warwick has discovered.

Precise ages of largest number of stars hosting planets ever measured

Measuring the ages of stars is one of the very tough problems that contemporary astronomers are faced with. Up to now only the age of the Sun has been determined with high precision (it is 4.57 billion years, with a precision of 10 million years to each side). An international group of astronomers have determined ages, diameters, densities, masses and distances for 33 stars better than ever before. As an extra, all of these stars have earth-like planets, giving us a clear indication that such planets have formed in our Milky Way Galaxy long before the Earth and are still being formed out there.