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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Baby Star Near the Black Hole in the Middle of our Milky Way: It exists after all

    March 1, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The baby star X3a in its envelope, X3 (shown in blue). The envelope is blown by stellar winds, which is why it forms a cigar-like shape. On timescales of less than 10 years clumps can form which in turn are swallowed by X3a. Copyright: Florian Peißker

    Scientists have detected the heaviest and youngest infant star ever discovered close to the black hole at the center of our Galaxy. They also identified the region where this ‘impossible star’ may have formed.

    An international team of researchers under the leadership of Dr Florian Peißker at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Astrophysics has discovered a very young star in its formation phase near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A) at the centre of our Milky Way...

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    Webb Spots Surprisingly Massive Galaxies in early Universe

    March 1, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Inching towards the Big Bang: The James Webb telescope peers deep into space and time
    Inching towards the Big Bang: The James Webb telescope peers deep into space and time.

    The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six massive galaxies that emerged not long after the Big Bang, a study said Wednesday, surprising scientists by forming at a speed that contradicts our current understanding of the universe.

    Since becoming operational last July, the Webb telescope has been peering farther than ever before into the universe’s distant reaches—which also means it is looking back in time.

    For its latest discovery, the telescope spied galaxies from between 500 to 700 years million years after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, meaning the universe was under five percent of its current age.

    Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which operates in the near infrared wavelength invis...

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    Astronomers discover Metal-Rich Galaxies in Early Universe

    February 28, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers discover metal-rich galaxy in early universe
    The moment 0 map and spectrum snippets of the strong emission lines. For each strong line(s), the lens-subtracted, continuum-subtracted moment 0 map is displayed in the first row, with the same marked regions as in Figure 1. The spectrum snippets are shown in the second row, integrated over the three regions. The spectra are offset vertically to aid vision, with the zero baseline indicated by a thin black line. The green dashed line indicates the Gaussian fit to the line or line associations plus the linear fit to the local continuum. The labeling style and color of the spectrum are the same as Figure 1. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2023). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acb59c

    While analyzing data from the first images of a well-known early galaxy taken by NASA’s James Webb Space...

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    How one of Saturn’s Moons Ejects Particles from Oceans Beneath its Surface

    February 28, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Enceladus, the sixth largest of Saturn’s moons, is known for spraying out tiny icy silica particles — so many of them that the particles are a key component of the second outermost ring around Saturn. Scientists have not known how that happens or how long the process takes. A study now shows that tidal heating in Enceladus’ core creates currents that transport the silica, which is likely released by deep-sea hydrothermal vents, over the course of just a few months.

    Although it is relatively small, Enceladus — the sixth largest of Saturn’s 83 moons — has been considered by astronomers to be one of the more compelling bodies in our solar system.

    Enceladus stands apart from other celestial bodies because of both its appearance and its behavior...

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