Category Astronomy/Space

An international team of astrophysicists from Southampton, Oxford and South Africa have detected a very hot, dense outflowing wind close to a black hole at least 25,000 light-years from Earth.

Lead researcher Professor Phil Charles from the University of Southampton explained that the gas (ionised helium and hydrogen) was emitted in bursts which repeated every 8 minutes, the first time this behaviour has been seen around a black hole. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The object Professor Charles’ team studied was Swift J1357...

Astronomers are planning to hunt for cores of exoplanets around white dwarf stars by ‘tuning in’ to the radio waves that they emit. In new research led by the University of Warwick, scientists have determined the best candidate white dwarfs to start their search, based upon their likelihood of hosting surviving planetary cores and the strength of the radio signal that we can ‘tune in’ to.

Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the research led by Dr Dimitri Veras from the Department of Physics assesses the survivability of planets that orbit stars which have burnt all of their fuel and shed their outer layers, destroying nearby objects and removing the outer l...

Radiation exposure impairs learning and memory, causes anxiety. Exposure to chronic, low dose radiation – the conditions present in deep space – causes neural and behavioral impairments in mice, researchers report in eNeuro. These results highlight the pressing need to develop safety measures to protect the brain from radiation during deep space missions as astronauts prepare to travel to Mars.

Radiation is known to disrupt signaling among other processes in the brain. However, previous experiments used short-term, higher dose-rate exposures of radiation, which does not accurately reflect the conditions in space.

To investigate how d...