Category Astronomy/Space

A Neutrino Portrait of our Galaxy reveals High-Energy Particles from within the Milky Way

Five views of the Milky Way: the top two bands show visible light and gamma rays, while the lower three show expected and real neutrino results, plus a measure of the significance of neutrino events detected by IceCube. IceCube Collaboration

Our Milky Way galaxy is an awe-inspiring feature of the night sky, viewable with the naked eye as a hazy band of stars stretching from horizon to horizon.

For the first time, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica has produced an image of the Milky Way using neutrinos—tiny, ghost-like astronomical messengers.

In research published June 29 in the journal Science, the IceCube Collaboration—an international group of more than 350 scientists—presents evidence of high-energy neutrino emission coming from the Milky Way.

We have not...

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Gullies on Mars could have been formed by recent periods of Liquid Meltwater, study suggests

A study led by Brown University researchers offers new insights into how water from melting ice could have played a recent role in the formation of ravine-like channels that cut down the sides of impact craters on Mars.

The study, published in Science, focuses on Martian gullies, which look eerily similar to gullies that form on Earth in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and are caused by water erosion from melting glaciers. The researchers, including Brown planetary scientist Jim Head, built a model that simulates a sweet spot for when conditions on Mars allow the planet to warm above freezing temperatures, leading to periods of liquid water on Mars when ice on and beneath the surface melts.

The scientists found that when Mars tilts on its axis to 35 degrees, the atmosphere becomes...

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Astronomers find a Planet that Shouldn’t Exist

A "hot Jupiter" exoplanet named Halla may have orbited two stars at one time. Interactions between the two stars may have helped Halla survive a stellar outburst.
A “hot Jupiter” exoplanet named Halla may have orbited two stars at one time. Interactions between the two stars may have helped Halla survive a stellar outburst. Adam Makarenko/W.M. Keck Observatory

When our sun reaches the end of its life, it will expand to 100 times its current size, enveloping the Earth. Many planets in other solar systems face a similar doom as their host stars grow old. But not all hope is lost, as astronomers from the University of HawaiÊ»i Institute for Astronomy (UH IfA) have made the remarkable discovery of a planet’s survival after what should have been certain demise at the hands of its sun.

The Jupiter-like planet 8 UMi b, officially named Halla, orbits the red giant star Baekdu (8 UMi) at only half the distance separating the Earth and the sun...

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ALMA digs deeper into the Mystery of Planet Formation

Images of disks around 19 protostars, including 4 binary systems observed with ALMA. For 1 binary system, disks around the primary and secondary are presented independently (2nd line rightmost and 3rd line leftmost). Disks are presented in the order of their evolutionary sequence (the one in the upper-left corner is the youngest while the one at the lower-right corner is the oldest). The two oldest disks show faint ring-gap structures. A scale bar of 20 au (roughly the distance between the Sun and Uranus) is shown for each disk image. (Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Ohashi et al.) Original size (1.0MB)

An international research team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe disks around 19 protostars with a very high resolution to search for the earliest...

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