Stars have seasons!

 

 

As inspired by the good ol’ nursery rhyme – ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’, which goes on to question, ‘...how I wonder what you are’ – scientists have been trying to figure out the mystery behind the weather conditions of stars. After seven long years of research, astronomers have traced mercury clouds atop a star called Alpha Andromedae. The observation proves that forces governing its weather resembled earth’s, dispelling beliefs (held earlier) that clouds on stars could be driven only by magnetic fields like those found in the sun and known as sunspots.