Astronomers explain blue stragglers: How do mysterious stars stay so young?
Thursday, October 20, 2011 - 13:31
in Astronomy & Space
Mysterious "blue stragglers" are old stars that appear younger than they should be: they burn hot and blue. Several theories have attempted to explain why they don't show their age, but, until now, scientists have lacked the crucial observations with which to test each hypothesis. Armed with such observational data, astronomers now report that a mechanism known as mass transfer explains the origins of the blue stragglers.