CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Stars may keep some of their youthful vigor as they age. Astronomers have spotted a star in its twilight years that spins much faster than expected. The discovery supports a new idea that, rather than continually slowing with age, some stars may have a magnetic midlife crisis that keeps them on a roll.
“This process of slowing rotation … that we assumed happened indefinitely over the lifetime of a star may be interrupted in the middle of a star’s life,” says astronomer Travis Metcalfe of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. He presented new measurements of the star’s age July 30 at the first TESS Science Conference.