News Astronomy

A simulation of a dying star shows how it could create gravitational waves

Debris from the stellar deaths could be a source of a new kind of spacetime ripple

A snapshot of a collapsing star spewing jets, colored red and green, outward against the backdrop of space

A dying star can emit a jet (red) surrounded by asymmetrical bubbles of material (yellow and green). The motion of this material through spacetime could also emit gravitational waves, researchers suggest.

Ore Gottlieb/CIERA/Northwestern University

By Lisa Grossman

Cocoons of debris around dying stars could shake ripples in spacetime unlike any astronomers have ever seen.