Astronomers have confirmed that Sakurai's Object, a rare 'born-again' star that re-ignited in 1996, has become six times hotter in 30 years and entered a new evolutionary stage as a Wolf-Rayet star. Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers observed the dead star's dramatic transformation, offering an unprecedented opportunity to watch stellar evolution unfold in real time rather than across millions of years.
A new study suggests the Sun may have engulfed a super-Earth-sized planet early in its history, leaving behind detectable chemical and structural signatures still visible today. Researchers modeled the Sun's evolution and found that planetary ingestion could explain discrepancies between standard solar models and observations, including the Sun's depleted lithium abundance and unusual internal structure.