Category Astronomy/Space

Cosmochemists have found that interstellar iron and carbon form a kind of linked molecule that cloaks the iron – and helps stabilize large carbon molecules. Astrophysicists know that iron is one of the most abundant elements in the universe, after lightweight elements such as hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Iron is most commonly found in gaseous form in stars such as the Sun, and in more condensed form in planets such as Earth.

Iron in interstellar environments should also be common...

Astronomers have studied the role of an excited black hole in the death of an exotic ‘jellyfish’ galaxy. The supermassive black hole at the center of jellyfish galaxy JO201 is stripping away gas and throwing it out into space, accelerating suppression of star formation and effectively ‘killing’ the galaxy.

Jellyfish galaxies are spectacular objects that undergo a dramatic process of transformation as they plunge through the dense core of a galaxy cluster at supersonic speeds. External drag forces tear away the galaxy’s gas, in a process known as ram-pressure stripping, leaving extended tentacles of trailing material.

The fate of JO201 has been revealed as part of a study of 114 jellyfish galaxies by th...

The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter preserves the processes of planetary formation, frozen in time. Vesta, the second largest asteroid in this belt, provides an outstanding opportunity for scientists to investigate the origin and formation of planets. In particular, Vesta has kept its crust, mantle and metallic core, much like Earth. Careful mapping of Vesta by NASA’s Dawn mission showed that the crust at the south pole of Vesta is unusually thick.

In a paper just published in Nature Geoscience, Dr. Yi-Jen Lai of the Macquarie University Planetary Research Centre and Macquarie GeoAnalytical and her colleagues propose a new evolutionary history of Vesta involving a giant impact...

Findings could help forecasters predict these potentially devastating space weather events. Citizen scientists found that solar storms become more complex as the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle reaches its maximum.

‘Protect our Planet from Solar Storms’, a research project launched by the University of Reading, the Science Museum Group and Zooniverse in May 2018, asked volunteers to evaluate pairs of images of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and decide which seemed the most visually complex.

Overall, the project ranke...