Category Astronomy/Space

Artistic impression of a Multiverse — where our Universe is only one of many. According to the research varying amounts of dark energy have little effect on star formation. This raises the prospect of life in other universes — if the Multiverse exists. Credit: Image by Jaime Salcido/simulations by the EAGLE Collaboration

A Multiverse – where our Universe is only one of many – might not be as inhospitable to life as previously thought, according to new research. Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern cosmology...

The stars of IGR J17062–6143, illustrated here, circle each other every 38 minutes, the fastest-known orbit for a binary system containing an accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar. As they revolve, a superdense pulsar pulls gas from a lightweight white dwarf. The two stars are so close they would fit between Earth and the Moon. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientists analyzing the first data from the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission have found two stars that revolve around each other every 38 minutes—about the time it takes to stream a TV drama. One of the stars in the system, called IGR J17062–6143 (J17062 for short), is a rapidly spinning, superdense star called a pulsar...

This artist’s impression shows the exiled asteroid 2004 EW95, the first carbon-rich asteroid confirmed to exist in the Kuiper Belt and a relic of the primordial solar system. This curious object likely formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and must have been transported billions of kilometers from its origin to its current home in the Kuiper Belt. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

ESO telescopes find first confirmed carbon-rich asteroid in Kuiper Belt. An international team of astronomers has used ESO telescopes to investigate a relic of the primordial Solar System. The team found that the unusual Kuiper Belt Object 2004 EW95 is a carbon-rich asteroid, the first of its kind to be confirmed in the cold outer reaches of the Solar System...

A team of physicists, including NJIT’s Gregory Fleishman, has discovered previously undetected energy in the Sun’s coronal loops. Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

The Sun’s corona, invisible to the human eye except when it appears briefly as a fiery halo of plasma during a solar eclipse, remains a puzzle even to scientists who study it closely. Located 1,300 miles from the star’s surface, it is more than a hundred times hotter than lower layers much closer to the fusion reactor at the Sun’s core...