A side from the fact that the Sun is orbited by the only planet in the universe known to be home to life, it’s pretty normal as far as stars go. Along with 90 per cent of the other stars in the universe, it’s classed as ‘main sequence’ and is powered by fusing hydrogen to make helium. It’s medium sized, is using up its fuel relatively slowly and will die quite quietly – without the drama of a supernova and with no risk of leaving behind a black hole. However, some of the other stars out there are seriously strange.
In the Milky Way and its surrounding satellite galaxies, astronomers have uncovered some weird and wonderful things. There are stars shrouded in clouds of lead, stars spinning so quickly that they are almost pulling themselves apart and stars that are being eaten by their companions. And those are just the ones that we can see. Scientists have also hypothesised about the existence of even weirder objects, including stars physically inside other stars and stars orbited by alien megastructures. Here we explore some of the weird and wonderful stars in the galaxy.
1 A FROZEN STELLAR GIANT
The term ‘frozen star’ was once used by Russian scientists to describe black holes – since to an outside observer, objects crossing over the event horizon appear to freeze – but there are thought to be stars that are actually frozen. Stars release energy using nuclear fusion, smashing
