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Astronomers discover white dwarf with an oxygen atmosphere

Researchers have discovered a white dwarf star with an atmosphere dominated by oxygen — a type of white dwarf that has been theorised to exist but not identified to date. The finding could challenge the textbook wisdom of single stellar evolution, and provide a critical link to some types of supernovae discovered over the past decade.

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Charting the Milky Way from the inside out

The Sun’s location within the Milky Way’s dust-obscured disc is a complicating factor when trying to determine the Galaxy’s four-arm spiral structure, but researchers are obtaining a clearer picture by mapping embedded star clusters using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).