What happens when a pulsar spins a hundred times per second… and refuses to let go? How did a dying star come back from destruction? Scientists using China’s FAST telescope made a discovery that challenges what we know about stellar evolution. Based on findings published in Science, this rare binary system could be the key to understanding some of the universe’s most violent unions. But just how rare is it? | The Brain Maze

Exploring Star and Planet Formation This animation explores the stages in the formation of stars and planets. Within a large, dense cloud, thousands of protostars collapse due to gravity. The infalling material forms a disk around the protostar, with jets emitted perpendicular to the disk. Planets condense and build up within the disk, establishing a new solar system. The Webb Space Telescope’s infrared observations will peer into these dark clouds and dusty disks to examine this formation proce