The Lifecycle of Massive Stars in Extreme Environments

Understanding how massive stars evolve and return energy, momentum, and metals to their surroundings is a central problem in astrophysics, with far-reaching consequences for galaxy evolution across cosmic time. Massive stars dominate the radiative and mechanical output of stellar populations, yet their evolutionary pathways remain uncertain, particularly under the extreme physical conditions that characterized the early Universe. Observations of high-redshift galaxies increasingly reveal stellar populations forming in dense, turbulent, and chemically evolving environments, motivating the need to anchor models of massive-star evolution and feedback in well-characterized local laboratories.

The evolution of massive stars is regulated by mass loss, rotation, binarity, and internal mixing, with strong dependencies on environmental properties such as metallicity and ambient pressure. Stellar winds, eruptive mass-loss episodes, and supernova explosions shape stellar lifetimes and feedback efficiencies, determining when and how energy and newly synthesized elements are injected into the interstellar medium. Despite major advances, key uncertainties persist in wind driving mechanisms, metallicity-dependent mass-loss prescriptions, the role of binary interaction, and the connection between pre-supernova evolution and explosion outcomes. These uncertainties propagate directly into population synthesis and spectral modelling, limiting our ability to interpret stellar populations across cosmic time.

Stellar feedback provides the essential link between massive-star evolution and galaxy-scale structure. Radiation, winds, and supernovae regulate gas densities, drive turbulence, and enrich the interstellar medium, thereby coupling stellar evolution to star formation and large-scale galactic dynamics. The relative importance of these feedback channels is expected to vary systematically with the environment, yet remains poorly constrained. Progress requires coordinated approaches that combine stellar evolution theory, magnetohydrodynamic and radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, and multi-wavelength observations probing stars, gas, dust, magnetic fields, and hot plasma.

Nearby extreme environments offer uniquely powerful tests of these processes. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds provide low-metallicity conditions in which stellar winds and evolutionary pathways differ markedly from those at solar metallicity, while remaining sufficiently resolved to link stellar populations directly to their feedback signatures. In contrast, the Central Molecular Zone of the Milky Way probes massive-star evolution and feedback in a high-metallicity, high-pressure environment shaped by bar-driven inflow and strong dynamical forcing, analogous to galactic nuclei and high-redshift star-forming systems. Together, these regions span a controlled range of physical conditions ideal for testing models of massive-star evolution and feedback.

This Research Topic aims to foster an integrative understanding of massive-star evolution and feedback across environments by bringing together observational, theoretical, and computational studies. We welcome original research, reviews, mini-reviews, and perspectives that leverage current and near-term facilities such as JWST, HST, ALMA, VLT, MeerKAT, Roman, and ELT- and GMT-class telescopes, while also helping to define the scientific foundations for future flagship missions, including next-generation concepts such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory.

To gather further insights, we welcome contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Environmental dependence of massive-star evolution (metallicity, pressure, radiation fields)
• Stellar winds, eruptive mass loss, and wind–ISM coupling across metallicity
• Astrochemical diagnostics of stellar feedback and enrichment, including isotopic ratios, molecular tracers of shocks, cosmic-ray ionization, and the chemical signatures of massive-star evolution in dense star-forming environments
• Binary evolution, multiplicity, and their impact on feedback and spectral diagnostics
• Supernova progenitors, explosion outcomes, and chemical enrichment pathways
• Synthetic spectra libraries, stellar parameter inference, and population synthesis in extreme environments
• Multi-wavelength feedback diagnostics (UV/optical/IR, radio, X-ray) linking stars to gas phases
• Theory and simulations (MHD/RHD; sub-grid feedback prescriptions; multi-phase ISM coupling)
• Comparative studies of the Magellanic Clouds and the Central Molecular Zone, including the role of large-scale dynamics
• Synergies and survey legacies with current, near-term, and future facilities (JWST, Roman, ELT/GMT, and next-generation missions such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory).

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Milky Way, Magellanic Clouds, Stellar Evolution, Massive Stars, Stellar Winds, Synthetic Spectra, Stellar Feedback

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.