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February 25, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Astronomers spot a young sun blowing bubbles inside the Milky Way<\/p>\n A baby sunlike star blowing a bubble of hot gas called an \u201castrosphere\u201d was captured for the first time by NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory<\/p>\n By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner<\/span><\/p>\n X-ray: NASA\/CXC\/John Hopkins Univ.\/C.M. Lisse et al.; Infrared: NASA\/ESA\/STIS; Image Processing: NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/N. Wolk<\/p>\n Earth and the rest of the solar system\u2019s planets live inside the heliosphere, a protective bubble that is blown up by our sun\u2019s winds. Other stars also have such bubbles, which astronomers call astrospheres.<\/p>\n Now NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured a very young sunlike star blowing up its bubble some 120 light-years away. Called HD 61005, this star has about the same mass and temperature of the sun but is just 100 million years old\u2014our home star is about five billion years old.<\/p>\n Because HD 61005 is still in its infancy, it produces a strong solar wind, boosting its bubble. Currently, the star\u2019s astrosphere has a diameter that\u2019s equivalent to around 200 times the distance between Earth and the sun\u2014not quite as large as the heliosphere.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been studying our Sun\u2019s astrosphere for decades, but we can\u2019t see it from the outside,\u201d said astronomer Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins University in a statement. \u201cThis new Chandra result about a similar star\u2019s astrosphere teaches us about the shape of the Sun\u2019s, and how it has changed over billions of years as the Sun evolves and moves through the galaxy.\u201d<\/p>\n HD 61005 is surrounded by a lot of dense dust, which is a remnant of the star\u2019s formation. The star produces x-rays as its stellar wind hits the cooler interstellar medium surrounding the star. The sun might have experienced a similar developmental stage in its infancy, the researchers say.<\/p>\n The observations were described in a paper that was posted on the preprint server arXiv.org and accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 25, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Astronomers spot a young sun blowing bubbles inside the Milky Way A baby sunlike star blowing a bubble of hot gas called an \u201castrosphere\u201d was captured for the first time by NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner X-ray: NASA\/CXC\/John<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[4341,903,12167,11667,2877,2641,801],"class_list":{"0":"post-45217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-astronomers","9":"tag-blowing","10":"tag-bubbles","11":"tag-milky","12":"tag-spot","13":"tag-sun","14":"tag-young"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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