Category Astronomy/Space

A team of scientists has, for the first time, used a single, cohesive computer model to simulate the entire life cycle of a solar flare: from the buildup of energy thousands of kilometers below the solar surface, to the emergence of tangled magnetic field lines, to the explosive release of energy in a brilliant flash.

The accomplishment, detailed in the journal Nature Astronomy...

For the first time, researchers have documented the long-predicted occurrence of ‘walls bound by strings’ in superfluid helium-3. The existence of such an object, originally foreseen by cosmology theorists, may help explaining how the universe cooled down after the Big Bang. With the newfound ability to recreate these structures in the lab, earth-based scientists finally have a way to study some of the possible scenarios that might have taken place in the early universe more closely. The findings, to be published 16th January in Nature Communications, came after two successive symmetry-breaking phase transitions at Aalto University’s Low Temperature Laboratory.

Helium stays a liquid at atmospheric pressure even wh...

An international team of scientists, including astronomers from the Universities of Leicester, Bath and Warwick, have found evidence for the existence of a ‘hot cocoon’ of material enveloping a relativistic jet escaping a dying star. This research is been published online today (Wednesday 16 January) and in print in Nature tomorrow (Thursday 17 January).

A relativistic jet is a very powerful phenomena which involves plasma jets shooting out of black holes at close to the speed of light, and can extend across millions of light years. Observations of supernova SN2017iuk taken shortly after its onset showed it expanding rapidly, at one third of the speed of light...

A new study finds that some supermassive black holes are ‘triggered’ to grow, suddenly devouring a large amount of gas in their surroundings. Supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions times more than our sun and lie at the center of most galaxies. A supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun is situated in the heart of our very own Milky Way.

Despite how commonplace supermassive black holes are, it remains unclear how they grow to such enormous proportions. Some black holes constantly swallow gas in their surroundings, some suddenly swallow whole stars...