Category Astronomy/Space

The discovery, based on an usual event dubbed ‘the Cow,’ may offer astronomers a new way to spot infant compact objects. A powerful cosmic burst dubbed AT2018cow, or ‘the Cow,’ was much faster and brighter than any stellar explosion astronomers had seen. They have now determined it was likely a product of a dying star that, in collapsing, gave birth to a compact object in the form of a black hole or neutron star.

In June of 2018, telescopes around the world picked up a brilliant blue flash from the spiral arm of a galaxy 200 million light years away...

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have uncovered a process in the swirling masses of plasma surrounding black holes and neutron stars that can cause previously unexplained emissions of light and heat. The process, known as magnetic reconnection, also jettisons huge plumes of plasma billions of miles in length. These findings can increase basic understanding of fundamental astrophysical processes throughout the universe.

Plasma, known as the fourth state of matter, comprises free-floating electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions, and makes up 99 percent of the visible universe...

Astronomers spying on a stellar system located dozens of lightyears from Earth have, for the first time, observed a troubling fireworks show: A star, named EK Draconis, ejected a massive burst of energy and charged particles much more powerful than anything scientists have seen in our own solar system.

The researchers, including astrophysicist Yuta Notsu of the University of Colorado Boulder, will publish their results Dec. 9 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The study explores a stellar phenomenon called a “coronal mass ejection,” sometimes known as a solar storm...

Current simulations of cosmic structure formation do not accurately reproduce the properties of ghost-like particles called neutrinos that have been present in the Universe since its beginning. But now, a research team from Japan has devised an approach that solves this problem.

In a study published this month in SC ’21: Proceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, researchers at the University of Tsukuba, Kyoto University, and the University of Tokyo report simulations that precisely follow the dynamics of such cosmic relic neutrinos...