Contest Winners, Dead Stars, and Other Poor Life Choices | 533

This week on Hysteria 51, we're handing over the keys to the asylum! We're finally announcing the winners of our Pick a Topic and Host the Show contest! That's right, a few lucky listeners have officially won the opportunity to join us behind the microphones, choose an episode topic, and experience firsthand just how little adult supervision goes into making this podcast. Congratulations! You've won a prize that's technically just more work for you.

Then, we're heading into space, where scientists have discovered something they previously said couldn't exist: a GREEN STAR! Apparently, the universe has been holding out on us, because researchers have also identified dead stars that could appear pink, purple, and other colors straight out of a Lisa Frank fever dream.

How does a dead star turn green? What does eating the remains of your own planetary system have to do with it? Why are blue stars hotter than red ones? And how did astronomers spend centuries studying the universe only to discover it has more color options than a 1997 Geo Tracker?

From contest winners and questionable hosting decisions to stellar corpses, cosmic cannibalism, and stars that apparently died in a vat of Mountain Dew, we're covering it all.

Sources

• Original Scientific Study (2026)
• Any Colour You Like: The Diverse Chromaticities of White Dwarfs
• CNN (October 16, 2026)
• Green Star Discovery
• Reuters (October 16, 2026)
• Newly Identified Green Star Leaves Astronomers Amazed
• University of Warwick (October 2026)
• Green, Pink and Purple: Astronomers Reveal the Surprising True Colors of White Dwarf Stars
• Smithsonian Magazine (October 2026)
• In a First, Astronomers Identify a Star That Might Glow Green
• NASA Science
• Stars and Stellar Evolution
• NASA Imagine the Universe
• Stellar Colors, Temperatures, and Spectral Classification

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