In 1936, young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) underwent a significant increase in brightness and has slowly declined in luminosity ever since. Once considered to be a stand-alone case, scientists have noted a small class of extremely tumultuous, young stars that experience large escalations in brightness, known as FU Ori objects.

To learn about the conditions that can lead to such significant growth in brightness, a team of astronomers wielded NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the relationship between FU Ori's stellar surface and its accretion disk. They found new, shocking details in the process.