'Low sodium diet' key to old age for stars: New observations create major headache for stellar theories

Wednesday, May 29, 2013 - 14:11 in Astronomy & Space

Astronomers expect that stars like the Sun will blow off much of their atmospheres into space near the ends of their lives. But new observations of a huge star cluster made using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have shown — against all expectations — that a majority of the stars studied simply did not get to this stage in their lives at all. The international team found that the amount of sodium in the stars was a very strong predictor of how they ended their lives.

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