https://phys.org/space-news/astronomy en-us Phys.org provides the latest news on astronomy, space, earth science and space exploration. A team of astronomers have identified the first direct evidence that groups of stars can tear apart their planet-forming disc, leaving it warped and with tilted rings. This new research suggests exotic planets, not unlike Tatooine in Star Wars, may form in inclined rings in bent discs around multiple stars. The results were made possible thanks to observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). https://phys.org/news/2020-09-planet-forming-disc-torn-central-stars.html Astronomy Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:00:03 EDT news518345172 A lopsided merger of two black holes may have an oddball origin story, according to a new study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-unexpected-story-lopsided-black-hole.html Astronomy Thu, 03 Sep 2020 03:59:43 EDT news518324375 Black holes can expel a thousand times more matter than they capture. The mechanism that governs both ejection and capture is the accretion disk, a vast mass of gas and dust spiraling around the black hole at extremely high speeds. The disk is hot and emits light as well as other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Part of the orbiting matter is pulled toward the center and disappears behind the event horizon, the threshold beyond which neither matter nor light can escape. Another, much larger, part is pushed further out by the pressure of the radiation emitted by the disk itself. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-universal-mechanism-ejection-black-holes.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 12:25:21 EDT news518268314 An analytical breakthrough that could significantly improve our chances of finding extra-terrestrial life in our galaxy has been discovered by a team at The University of Manchester. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-breakthrough-narrows-intelligent-life-milky.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:30:01 EDT news518257353 Using the Lijiang Observatory, astronomers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have inspected a gamma-ray blazar known as S5 0716+714. The observations provided important insights into the spectral behavior of this source, finding that it is brightness-dependent. The study was published August 26 on the arXiv.org preprint repository. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-chinese-astronomers-spectral-behavior-gamma-ray.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:10:01 EDT news518251072 For all its vast emptiness, the universe is humming with activity in the form of gravitational waves. Produced by extreme astrophysical phenomena, these reverberations ripple forth and shake the fabric of space-time, like the clang of a cosmic bell. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ligo-virgo-detectors-massive-gravitational-wave.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:00:03 EDT news518238766 Scientists observed what appears to be a bulked-up black hole tangling with a more ordinary one. The research team, which includes physicists from the University of Maryland, detected two black holes merging, but one of the black holes was 1 1/2 times more massive than any ever observed in a black hole collision. The researchers believe the heavier black hole in the pair may be the result of a previous merger between two black holes.This type of hierarchical combining of black holes has been hypothesized in the past but the observed event, labeled GW190521, would be the first evidence for such activity. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and Virgo Collaboration announced the discovery in two papers published September 2, 2020, in the journals Physical Review Letters and Astrophysical Journal Letters. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-heaviest-black-hole-merger-gravitational.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:00:02 EDT news518238623 An alert pops up in your email: The latest spacecraft observations are ready. You now have 24 hours to scour 84 hours-worth of data, selecting the most promising split-second moments you can find. The data points you choose, depending on how you rank them, will download from the spacecraft in the highest possible resolution; researchers may spend months analyzing them. Everything else will be overwritten like it was never collected at all. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-magnetic-eruptions-space-ai.html Astronomy Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2020 07:46:16 EDT news518251570 Astronomers have known for two decades that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, but the physics of this expansion remains a mystery. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa have made a novel prediction—the dark energy responsible for this accelerating growth comes from a vast sea of compact objects spread throughout the voids between galaxies. This conclusion is part of a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-candidate-mysterious-dark-energy.html Astronomy Tue, 01 Sep 2020 12:36:29 EDT news518182584 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) astronomers have detected 18 very metal-poor stars in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. They found that one of the stars from the sample has an extremely low metallicity, slightly below -3.0. The study was reported in a paper published August 22 on the arXiv preprint repository. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-astronomers-metal-poor-stars-sagittarius-dwarf.html Astronomy Tue, 01 Sep 2020 09:00:01 EDT news518163610 Radio astronomers have detected jets of hot gas blasted out by a black hole in the galaxy at the heart of the Phoenix Galaxy Cluster, located 5.9 billion light-years away in the constellation Phoenix. This is an important result for understanding the coevolution of galaxies, gas, and black holes in galaxy clusters. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-black-hole-cold-heart-phoenix.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:32:47 EDT news518085164 An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a supermassive black hole residing at the core of a galaxy that is accreting material. The accretion occurs in the vicinity of the hot torus around the nucleus, and it can generate rapidly moving jets of charged particles that emit bright, variable radiation as material ccelertes as it falls inward. Quasars are perhaps the best-known luminous AGN, and their nuclei are relatively unobscured by dust. Quasar nuclear regions and disks are too far away and much too small to be resolved with telescopes and astronomers trying to understand the behavior of quasars, AGN, and accretion disks are forced to infer the physics from indirect measurements. Flux variability measurements offer one such avenue. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-microlensing-quasar-accretion-disk.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:23:55 EDT news518084630 Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers from Japan have probed a nearby starburst galaxy known as NGC 1482. They detected a molecular gas outflow that could be essential to improving the understanding of the galactic wind in NGC 1482. The finding is detailed in a paper published August 20 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-molecular-outflow-galaxy-ngc.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 09:00:01 EDT news518078266 Solar filaments are large magnetic structures confining cool and dense plasma suspended in the hot and tenuous corona. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-scientists-reveal-physical-scenario-sympathetic.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Aug 2020 07:39:06 EDT news518078344 In a landmark study, scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the immense envelope of gas, called a halo, surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor. Scientists were surprised to find that this tenuous, nearly invisible halo of diffuse plasma extends 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy—about halfway to our Milky Way—and as far as 2 million light-years in some directions. This means that Andromeda's halo is already bumping into the halo of our own galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-hubble-giant-halo-andromeda-galaxy.html Astronomy Space Exploration Thu, 27 Aug 2020 14:52:33 EDT news517758729 Previous studies on the formation and evolution of spiral galaxies might have been based on an incorrect assumption, suggests a team of researchers of Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA). https://phys.org/news/2020-08-decades-evolution-spiral-galaxies.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 13:29:32 EDT news517753770 Astronomers have used the GRAVITY instrument to study the immediate vicinity of a young star in more detail than ever before. Their observations confirm a thirty-year-old theory about the growth of young stars: the magnetic field produced by the star itself directs material from a surrounding accretion disk of gas and dust onto its surface. The results, published today in the journal Nature, help astronomers to better understand how stars like our Sun are formed and how Earth-like planets are produced from the disks surrounding these stellar babies. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-gas-young-stars-magnetic-field.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 10:31:42 EDT news517743097 A cosmic dance between two merging galaxies, each one containing a supermassive black hole that's rapidly feeding on so much material it creates a phenomenon known as a quasar, is a rare find. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-maunakea-observatories-pairs-merging-supermassive.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 08:21:49 EDT news517735304 A team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has, for the first time, detected constant infrared emission from winds produced during the eruption of a black hole in an X-ray binary. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-infrared-eruption-stellar-mass-black.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2020 08:20:22 EDT news517735218 The detection more than a decade ago by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope of an excess of high-energy radiation in the center of the Milky Way convinced some physicists that they were seeing evidence of the annihilation of dark matter particles, but a team led by researchers at the University of California, Irvine has ruled out that interpretation. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-dark-destruction-extra-galaxy-center.html Astronomy Space Exploration Wed, 26 Aug 2020 15:15:12 EDT news517673704 When a star passes too close to a supermassive black hole, tidal forces tear it apart, producing a bright flare of radiation as material from the star falls into the black hole. Astronomers study the light from these "tidal disruption events" (TDEs) for clues to the feeding behavior of the supermassive black holes lurking at the centers of galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-black-hole-devouring-star-reveal.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2020 12:51:07 EDT news517665058 Using the AstroSat spacecraft, Indian astronomers have identified thermonuclear X-ray bursts on the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) Cygnus X-2. The finding, reported in a paper published August 17 on the arXiv preprint server, could shed more light on the nature of this source. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-astrosat-thermonuclear-x-ray-cygnus-x-.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2020 09:10:05 EDT news517648422 The nebula known as W51 is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. First identified in 1958 by radio telescopes, it makes a rich cosmic tapestry in this image from NASA's recently retired Spitzer Space Telescope. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-stars-nasa-spitzer-spies-hot.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2020 08:14:38 EDT news517648475 Not so long ago, astronomers mapped a galaxy far, far away using radio waves and found it has a strikingly familiar shape. In the process, they discovered the object, called TXS 0128+554, experienced two powerful bouts of activity in the last century. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-nasa-missions-explore-fighter-galaxy.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:08:04 EDT news517579665 The origin of life on Earth is a topic that has piqued human curiosity since probably before recorded history began. But how did the organic matter that constitutes lifeforms even arrive at our planet? Though this is still a subject of debate among scholars and practitioners in related fields, one approach to answering this question involves finding and studying complex organic molecules (COMs) in outer space. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-cosmic-complex-molecules-radiofrequency-footprint.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 11:10:56 EDT news517572652 A nearby star, the host of two (and possibly three) planets, was initially thought to be quiet and boring. These attributes are sought-after as they create a safe environment for their planets, especially those that may be in what scientists call "the habitable zone" where liquid water could exist on their surfaces and life might be possible. But astronomers at Arizona State University have announced that this nearby star turns out to be not so tame after all. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-planets-safe-stellar-flares-thought.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:40:56 EDT news517567253 New light has been shed on a mysterious and long-standing conundrum at the very heart of our galaxy. The new work offers a potential solution to the so-called "Galactic bar paradox," whereby different observations produce contradictory estimates of the motion of the central regions of the Milky Way. The results are published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-galactic-bar-paradox-cosmic.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:07:32 EDT news517565249 By analyzing the data from ESA's Gaia satellite, Chinese astronomers have discovered four new open clusters in the Cygnus Nebula Cloud. The newfound clusters, designated QC1 to QC 4, are located between 4,100 and 7,600 light-years away. The finding is reported in a paper published August 17 on arXiv.org. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-clusters-cygnus-cloud.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:00:01 EDT news517563967 A mystery surrounding the space around our solar system is unfolding thanks to evidence of supernovae found in deep-sea sediments. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-ancient-star-explosions-revealed-deep.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2020 08:47:36 EDT news517564054 Astronomers have reported the discovery of a new galactic supernova remnant (SNR) in the Cepheus constellation. The newly detected SNR is relatively large and optically bright, but faint in radio and X-ray bands. The finding is detailed in a paper published August 13 on the arXiv pre-print repository. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-large-optically-bright-supernova-remnant.html Astronomy Mon, 24 Aug 2020 09:00:02 EDT news517472783