Category Astronomy/Space

Stellar Eggs near Galactic Center hatching into Baby Stars

ALMA pseudo-color composite image of the gas outflows from stellar eggs in the Galactic Center region. Gas moving toward us is shown in blue and gas moving away from us is shown in red. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Lu et al

Astronomers found a number of stellar eggs containing baby stars around the center of the Milky Way using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Previous studies had suggested that the environment there is too harsh to form stars. These findings indicate that star formation is more resilient than researchers thought.

Stars form in stellar eggs, cosmic clouds of gas and dust which collapse due to gravity. If something interferes with the gravity driven contraction, star formation will be suppressed...

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Supernova Simulations reveal how Stellar Explosions Shape Debris Clouds

image of a supernova
A supernova creates a cloud of debris that bears an imprint of the explosion. In this visualization of the simulation data, one quarter of the remnant’s outer shell has been removed to reveal the clumps of matter within (colors denote different materials). Credit: Reproduced from Ref. 1 by permission of the AAS.

Astronomers are now in a better position to interpret observations of supernova remnants thanks to computer simulations of these cataclysmic events by RIKEN astrophysicists.

When certain types of stars die, they go out in a blaze of glory—an incredibly powerful explosion known as a supernova. One of the most common forms of supernova, typeIa, starts with a dense white dwarf star that has burned up its hydrogen fuel...

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Sun. Astrophysicists Simulate Microscopic Clusters from the Big Bang

The very first structures in the Universe
The results of the simulation show the growth of tiny, extremely dense structures very soon after the inflation phase of the very early universe. Between the initial and final states in the simulation (top left and right respectively), the area shown has expanded to ten million times its initial volume, but is still many times smaller than the interior of a proton. The enlarged clump at the bottom left would have a mass of about 20kg. Credit: Jens Niemeyer, University of Göttingen

The very first moments of the Universe can be reconstructed mathematically even though they cannot be observed directly. Physicists from the Universities of Göttingen and Auckland (New Zealand) have greatly improved the ability of complex computer simulations to describe this early epoch...

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New Light on Baryonic Matter and Gravity on Cosmic Scales

The presence of ionized gas around galaxies with moves with them leaves a trace in the microwave background radiation (left panel) which can be detected knowing the pattern of velocities of the galaxies provided by the map of fluctuations in their redshift (right panel). Credit: Carlos Hernández-Monteagudo (IAC).
The presence of ionized gas around galaxies with moves with them leaves a trace in the microwave background radiation which can be detected knowing the pattern of velocities of the galaxies provided by the map. Credit: Carlos Hernández-Monteagudo (IAC).

Scientists estimate that dark matter and dark energy together are some 95% of the gravitational material in the universe while the remaining 5% is baryonic matter, which is the “normal” matter composing stars, planets and living beings. However, for decades, almost one-half of this matter has not been found. Now, using a new technique, a team including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has shown that this “missing” baryonic matter fills the space between galaxies as hot, low-density gas...

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