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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Exiled Planet Linked to Stellar Flyby 3 million years ago

    March 2, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space


    Researchers explored a material that has an internal structure, shown in 3D in left panel, that consists of triangles and hexagons arranged in a pattern similar to that of a Japanese kagome basket.
    Credit: Hasan, et. al, Princeton University

    Two binary star systems narrowly missed one another, but left behind a smoking gun. Paul Kalas of UC Berkeley was puzzled by the tilted but stable orbit of a planet around a binary star – an orbit like that of our solar system’s proposed Planet Nine. He calculated backwards in time to see if any of the 461 nearby stars ever came close enough to perturb the system. One star fit the bill. The stellar flyby 2-3 million years ago likely stabilized the planet’s orbit, keeping it from flying away.

    Some of the peculiar aspects of our solar system – an env...

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    Hiding Black Hole found

    March 2, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This is an artist’s impression of a gas cloud swirling around a black hole.
    Credit: NAOJ

    Astronomers have detected a stealthy black hole from its effects on an interstellar gas cloud. This intermediate mass black hole is one of over 100 million quiet black holes expected to be lurking in our Galaxy. These results provide a new method to search for other hidden black holes and help us understand the growth and evolution of black holes.

    Black holes range in mass from about 5 times the mass of the Sun to supermassive black holes millions of times the mass of the Sun. Astronomers think that small black holes merge and gradually grow into large ones, but no one had ever found an intermediate mass black hole, hundreds or thousands of times the mass of the Sun.

    A research team led by Shunya T...

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    Dark Matter may be Hitting the Right Note in Small Galaxies

    March 1, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers observed that the dark matter does not seem to clump very much in small galaxies, but their density peaks sharply in bigger systems such as clusters of galaxies. It has been a puzzle why different systems behave differently.
    Credit: Kavli IPMU – Kavli IPMU modified this figure based on the image credited by NASA, STScI

    Dark matter may scatter against each other only when they hit the right energy, say researchers in Japan, Germany, and Austria in a new study. Their idea helps explain why galaxies from the smallest to the biggest have the shapes they do.

    Dark matter is a mysterious and unknown form of matter that comprises more than 80 per cent of matter in the Universe today...

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    Anemic Galaxy reveals Deficiencies in Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy Formation theory

    February 28, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    DGSAT I (left), an ultra-diffuse galaxy (UDG), is shown next to a normal spiral galaxy (right) for comparison. Both are similar in size, but UDGs like DGSAT I have so few stars, you can see right through them, to the galaxies in the background.
    Credit: A. ROMANOWSKY/UCO/D. MARTINEZ-DELGADO/ARI

    Strange features of a newly discovered ghostly galaxy deepen mystery of how ultra-diffuse galaxies are born. A team of astronomers led by the University of California Observatories (UCO) have studied in great detail a galaxy so faint and in such pristine condition it has acted as a time capsule, sealed shortly after the dawn of our universe only to be opened by the newest technology at W. M. Keck Observatory.

    Using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI), the team discovered a bizarre, solitary ultra-d...

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