Identify 379,000 “transforming stars”, 1 of which is igniting Earth-Information Technology

The “All Sky Supernova Automated Survey” (ASAS-SN) project has helped identify nearly 379,000 “morphing stars”, of which 116,027 have never been observed before.

“Variable stars”, or variable stars, are stars whose luminosity changes over time, often fading, causing their shape as seen from Earth to appear altered.

“Transforming stars are like a stellar laboratory. They are places where we can study and learn more about how stars actually work and what little complexities they possess.” – Sci-News quoted Dr. Collin Christy from the Department of Astronomy, Ohio State University – USA.

The Carina Nebula, where the famous bright variable star Eta Carinae exists – Photo: ESO

For the study, Dr. Christy and colleagues analyzed data from ASAS-SN as well as from ESA’s Gaia mission, the 2 Micron Sky Survey (2MASS) and the AllWISE catalog. They used a computer algorithm to generate a list of 1.5 million variable star “candidates” from a catalog of about 55 million isolated stars.

The screening steps revealed a total of 378,861 variable stars in the observed sky, of which 116,027 were previously unknown. Of the 116,027 new variable stars, more than 111,000 are periodic and 5,000 are irregular.

If you still can’t imagine what a morphing star would look like, you can think of a “wet” parent star that is continuously firing flares of energy like flares and plasma fireballs at Earth. The Sun is also a variable star.

Scientists hope this new statistic will help them identify the most suitable variable stars to study, thereby answering a host of questions from star formation, complex life and like their death.

The study has just been published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.