Green stars may be possible, after all. In a new research paper, astronomers studying the light from white dwarf stars have claimed that trace elements present in the stars’ atmospheres could sometimes result in pink, purple, yellow, cyan, and even green colors. These stars are too dim for their colors to be visible to the naked eye, but the scientists were able to infer what they would look like using measurements of the stars’ light across a range of wavelengths. Image credit: Mark Hollands/University of Warwick.
The Orionid meteor shower peaks next week. The Orionids typically show about 20 meteors per hour from a dark site during peak activity, which this year falls on the night between Oct. 21 and 22. Unfortunately, a waxing gibbous Moon will reduce the shower’s visibility during the beginning and middle of the night, until after the Moon sets. Image credit: NASA.
Artemis II’s Christina Koch is stepping away from active flight duty. The NASA astronaut will now serve as the agency’s acting deputy chief engineer, helping lead technical oversight of various NASA programs. With Koch’s transition, all of the Artemis II crew have moved on from being eligible for future space missions.