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    Category Astronomy/Space

    ALMA Observations show how Double, Triple, Quadruple and Quintuple Star Systems Form Simultaneously in a Molecular Cloud

    January 17, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Blue-green-yellow splashes of colour with red-white islands against a blue background.
    False-color image of the massive star formation region G333.23–0.06 from data obtained with the ALMA radio observatory. North is to the left. The insets show regions in which Li et al. were able to detect multiple systems of protostars. The star symbols indicate the location of each newly forming stars. The image covers a region 0.62 by 0.78 light-years in size (which on the sky covers a mere 7.5 times 9.5 arc seconds). For comparison: If you look at the sky along an outstretched thumb, it spans a viewing angle of around two degrees. One degree corresponds to 3600 arc seconds.
    © S. Li, MPIA / J. Neidel, MPIA Graphics Department / Data: ALMA Observatory

    For humans, the chance of giving birth to multiples is less than 2%...

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    Discovery of Second Ultra-Large Structure in Distant Space further Challenges Our Understanding of the Universe

    January 16, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Discovery of a second ultra-large structure in distant space further challenges what we understand about the universe
    An artistic impression of what the Big Ring (shown in blue) and Giant Arc (shown in red) would look like in the sky. Credit: Stellarium

    The Big Ring in the Sky is 9.2 billion light-years from Earth. It has a diameter of about 1.3 billion light-years, and a circumference of about 4 billion light-years. If we could step outside and see it directly, the diameter of the Big Ring would need about 15 full moons to cover it.

    It is the second ultra-large structure discovered by University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) Ph.D. student Alexia Lopez who, two years ago, also discovered the Giant Arc in the Sky. Remarkably, the Big Ring and the Giant Arc, which is 3...

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    Why is the Universe Ripping Itself Apart? A new study shows Dark Energy may be more complicated than we thought

    January 15, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A small star slurping material from a much larger one.
    In a Type Ia supernova, a white dwarf slowly pulls mass from a neighboring star before exploding. NASA / JPL-Caltech, CC BY

    What is the universe made of? This question has driven astronomers for hundreds of years.

    For the past quarter of a century, scientists have believed “normal” stuff like atoms and molecules that make up you, me, Earth, and nearly everything we can see only accounts for 5% of the universe. Another 25% is “dark matter”, an unknown substance we can’t see but which we can detect through how it affects normal matter via gravity.

    The remaining 70% of the cosmos is made of “dark energy”. Discovered in 1998, this is an unknown form of energy believed to be making the universe expand at an ever-increasing rate.

    In a new study soon to be published in the Astronom...

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    Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detects Surprise Gamma-Ray feature Beyond our Galaxy

    January 15, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist's concept of gamma ray sky with dipole marked in magenta
    This artist’s concept shows the entire sky in gamma rays with magenta circles illustrating the uncertainty in the direction from which more high-energy gamma rays than average seem to be arriving. In this view, the plane of our galaxy runs across the middle of the map. The circles enclose regions with a 68% (inner) and a 95% chance of containing the origin of these gamma rays.
    NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

    Astronomers analyzing 13 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found an unexpected and as yet unexplained feature outside of our galaxy.

    “It is a completely serendipitous discovery,” said Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, who presented the research at the 243rd mee...

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