Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2026

24 MAY-JUNE 2026 ASTRO PUBLISHING aged a beautiful shock wave around a dead star — a discovery that has left them puzzled. According to all known mechanisms, the small, dead star RXJ0528+2838 should not have such structure around it. This discov- ery, as enigmatic as it’s stunning, challenges our understanding of how dead stars interact with their surroundings. “We found something never seen before and, more impor- tantly, entirely unexpected,” says Si- mone Scaringi, associate professor at Durham University, UK and co-lead G as and dust flowing from stars can, under the right condi- tions, clash with a star’s sur- roundings and create a shock wave. Now, astronomers using the Euro- pean Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have im- A dead star creating a shock wave by ESO Bárbara Ferreira