Category Astronomy/Space

Inexplicable Flying Fox found in Hydra Galaxy Cluster

GMRT radio image of the central region of the Hydra Cluster. The “head” of the Flying Fox discovered this time points to the south-west (lower right). The Flying Fox has a “wingspan” of 220,000 light years. The white contours in the background show the X-ray surface brightness as observed by ESA’s XMM-Newton satellite.(Credit: Kohei Kurahara)

High sensitivity radio observations have discovered a cloud of magnetized plasma in the Hydra galaxy cluster. The odd location and shape of this plasma defy all conventional explanations. Dubbed the Flying Fox based on its silhouette, this plasma will remain a mystery until additional observations can provide more insight.

A team led by Kohei Kurahara at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan analyzed observations from the Gia...

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The Universe’s Accelerated Expansion Might be Slowing Down

First results from DESI make the most precise measurement of our expanding universe

The universe is still expanding at an accelerating rate, but it may have slowed down recently compared to a few billion years ago, early results from the most precise measurement of its evolution yet suggested Thursday.

While the preliminary findings are far from confirmed, if they hold up it would further deepen the mystery of dark energy—and likely mean there is something important missing in our understanding of the cosmos.

These signals of our universe’s changing speeds were spotted by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which is perched atop a telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in the US state of Arizona.

Each of the instrument’s 5,000 fiber-optic robots can observe a galaxy for 20 minutes, allowing astronomers to chart what they have called t...

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New Research Traces the Fates of Stars Living Near the Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Stellar collisions produce strange, zombie-like survivors
This illustration shows the orbits of stars very close to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Credit: ESO / L. Calçada / Spaceengine.org

Despite their ancient ages, some stars orbiting the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole appear deceptively youthful. But unlike humans, who might appear rejuvenated from a fresh round of collagen injections, these stars look young for a much darker reason.

They ate their neighbors.

This is just one of the more peculiar findings from new Northwestern University research. Using a new model, astrophysicists traced the violent journeys of 1,000 simulated stars orbiting our galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).

So densely packed with stars, the region commonly experiences b...

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First Tidally Locked Super-Earth Exoplanet Confirmed

First tidally locked exoplanet super-Earth confirmed
Observed dayside brightness temperature of LHS 3844b (red; 1σ range), vs. the planet’s theoretical dayside equilibrium temperature for two different rotation states (solid curves). The blue curve assumes pseudo-synchronous rotation, the green curve assumes Mercury-like 3:2 rotation. Shaded blue and green regions indicate the effect of increasing or decreasing LHS 3844b’s tidal dissipation efficiency by 1 order of magnitude. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal (2024). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad2077

An international team of astronomers and astrophysicists has confirmed the first known observance of a tidally locked super-Earth exoplanet...

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