Category Astronomy/Space

This is an artist impression of nanoscale diamonds surrounding a young star in the Milky Way. Recent GBT and ATCA observations have identified the telltale radio signal of diamond dust around 3 such stars, suggesting they are a source of the so-called anomalous microwave emission. Credit: S. Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF

Nanoscale gemstones source of mysterious cosmic microwave light. Some of the tiniest diamonds in the universe – bits of crystalline carbon hundreds of thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand – have been detected swirling around 3 infant star systems in the Milky Way...

The massive pulsar in the binary system PSR J2215+5135, illustrated in the Figure, heats up the inner face of its companion star. Credit: Gabriel Pérez, SMM (IAC).

Using a pioneering method, researchers have found a neutron star of about 2.3 Solar masses – one of the most massive ever detected. Neutron stars (often called pulsars) are stellar remnants that have reached the end of their evolutionary life: they result from the death of a star of between 10 and 30 Solar masses. Despite their small size (about 20 km in diameter), neutron stars have more mass than the Sun, so they are extremely dense.

Researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (IAC) used an innovative method to measure the mass of one of the heaviest neutron...

This is an image of the R Aquarii nebula taken with the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) at the Observatory of Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) in La Palma. Colours indicate different ionization stages of the same chemical element, oxygen. Credit: R. Corradi – Daniel López

Scientists have published a detailed study of the evolution of the nebula surrounding the symbiotic star R Aquarii. The study employed observations from telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, and Chile taken over the course of more than two decades. In astronomical terms, at 600 light years away, the nebula around R Aquarii is rather close to us...

Researchers expect the volcanoes in Mars’ Sisyphi Planum region to look similar to subglacial volcanoes on earth, such as Herðubreið in Iceland. Credit: Purdue University photo/Sheridan Ackiss

The climate throughout Mars’ early history has long been debated – was the Red Planet warm and wet, or cold and icy? New research published in Icarus provides evidence for the latter. Mars is littered with valley networks, deltas and lake deposits, meaning it must have had freely flowing water at some point, probably around 4 billion years ago. But climate models of the planet’s deep past haven’t been able to produce warm enough conditions to allow liquid water on the surface.

“There are people trying to model Mars’ ancient climate using the same kind of models we use here on Earth, and they’re hav...