Partner swaping, questionable group activities amongst stars. I am not talking about movies stars here, although I probably could be. I am talking about those small shining dots in the night sky.

The journal Nature reports that "astronomers have uncovered a scandalous degree of promiscuity in the cosmos. Clusters where stars gather more densely than usual are veritable hotbeds of partner-swapping. Some stars engage in half a dozen or so relationships during their lifetime."

Densely packed stars often become involved with others, sometimes two revolving around their combined centre of mass whilst stealling matter from one another. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, these relationships can occassionally extend to 3, or even 4, stars.

Such hedonistic behaviour comes at a cost, of course. In a related article, Alan Heavens of University of Edinburgh predicts that a mass extinction of stars is taking place. Within a mere 10 billion years our night sky will be a pretty dark place, well so will our day sky if our sun is one of them.

Read about promiscuity here and star extinction here

As an aside, what an incredibly appropriate surname for a astronomer.