On Oct. 5, 2020, the rapidly rotating corpse of a long-dead star about 30,000 light years from Earth changed speeds. In a cosmic instant, its spinning slowed. And a few days later, it abruptly started emitting radio waves.
Astronomy
Jan 27, 2023
27
496
Scientists have discovered the first gamma-ray eclipses from a special type of binary star system using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These so-called spider systems each contain a pulsar—the superdense, ...
Astronomy
Jan 26, 2023
0
366
A research team at the University of Göttingen has developed a new method to produce X-ray images in color. In the past, the only way to determine the chemical composition of a sample and the position of its components using ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 24, 2023
0
165
Not all flashlights are created equal. Some are stronger, consume more power, or have features such as blinking or strobes. Some aren't even meant for humans, such as a new project that recently received funding from a NASA ...
Space Exploration
Jan 23, 2023
0
9
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus, continues to threaten populations around the world, after killing over 1 million Americans. In recent weeks, XBB.1.5, the most transmissible variant to date, has started ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 10, 2023
0
128
Using NASA's Fermi spacecraft, Chinese astronomers have investigated the variability and spectral behavior of gamma-ray flares in a distant blazar known as 3C 279. Results of the study, presented in a paper published in the ...
Astronomers from Argentina and France have investigated the evolutionary history of an eccentric high-mass X-ray binary known as GX 301-2. Results of the study, published December 22 on the arXiv pre-print repository, deliver ...
A scientist from Tokyo Metropolitan University has shown that large gamma-ray-emitting bubbles around the center of the Milky Way were produced by fast, outward-blowing winds and an associated "reverse shock." Numerical simulations ...
Astronomy
Jan 3, 2023
5
429
When a material with magnetic properties, constructed from appropriately selected layers, is illuminated by a pulse from an X-ray laser, it instantly demagnetizes. This phenomenon, so far poorly understood, could in the future ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 15, 2022
0
16
The cosmic optical background (COB) is the visible light emitted by all sources outside of the Milky Way. This faint glow of light, which can only be observed using very precise and sophisticated telescopes, could help astrophysics ...
