Transient and explosive astronomical phenomena constitute a research area focused on short-lived, high-energy events in the universe, such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, tidal disruption events, kilonovae, and fast radio bursts. This field investigates the underlying physical mechanisms driving rapid energy release, including relativistic jets, shock breakout, nucleosynthesis, compact object mergers, and accretion-induced instabilities. Research integrates multiwavelength and multimessenger observations (electromagnetic spectra, gravitational waves, neutrinos) with numerical simulations and theoretical modeling to constrain progenitor systems, energy budgets, radiative transfer processes, and environmental impact, including feedback on galactic evolution and the production of heavy elements.
Measuring distances across the universe is much more challenging than measuring distances on Earth. Is a brighter star closer to Earth than another, or is it just emitting more light? To make confident distance measurements, ...
Astronomy
Jan 22, 2025
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Using the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, an international team of astronomers has detected 26 new Galactic radio transients. Most of them turned out to be rotating radio transients (RRATs). The finding is detailed in ...
For the first time, astronomers have traced a fast radio burst (FRB) to the outskirts of an ancient, dead, elliptical galaxy—an unprecedented home for a phenomenon previously associated with much younger galaxies.
Astronomy
Jan 21, 2025
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When some of the biggest stars reach the end of their lives, they explode in spectacular supernovas and leave behind incredibly dense cores called neutron stars. Some of these remnants emit powerful radio beams from their ...
Astronomy
Jan 15, 2025
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Once upon a time, the core of a massive star collapsed, creating a shockwave that blasted outward, ripping the star apart as it went. When the shockwave reached the star's surface, it punched through, generating a brief, ...
Astronomy
Jan 14, 2025
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The long-awaited detection of gravitational waves has opened up a whole new world of astronomy. One of the key efforts is now to tie signals across multiple domains—for example, a gravitational wave and the associated electromagnetic ...
Astronomy
Jan 8, 2025
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An international team of astronomers have investigated a large Galactic supernova remnant designated G278.94+1.35. Results of the study, published Dec. 30 on the pre-print server arXiv, shed more light on the properties of ...
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are notoriously difficult to study. They are flashes of radio light that can outshine a galaxy but often last for only a fraction of a second. For years, all we could do was observe them by random ...
Astronomy
Jan 6, 2025
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Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and ...
Astronomy
Jan 1, 2025
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An international team of astronomers has reported the discovery of a new pulsar, which received the designation PSR J1631–4722. The newfound pulsar, which is young and energetic, turns out to be associated with a supernova ...
