Category Astronomy/Space

The image of the planet Neptune on the left was obtained during the testing of the Narrow-Field adaptive optics mode of the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The image on the right is a comparable image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Note that the two images were not taken at the same time so do not show identical surface features.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has achieved first light with a new adaptive optics mode called laser tomography – and has captured remarkably sharp test images of the planet Neptune and other objects. The MUSE instrument working with the GALACSI adaptive optics module, can now use this new technique to correct for turbulence at different altitudes in the atmosphere...

Various groupings of Jovian moons with the newly discovered ones shown in bold. The ‘oddball,’ called Valetudo after the Roman god Jupiter’s great-granddaughter, has a prograde orbit that crosses the retrograde orbits. Credit: By Roberto Molar-Candanosa, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science.

This brings Jupiter’s total number of known moons to a whopping 79 – the most of any planet in our solar system. Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found – 11 “normal” outer moons, and one that they’re calling an “oddball.” This brings Jupiter’s total number of known moons to a whopping 79 – the most of any planet in our Solar System.

A team led by Carnegie’s Scott S...

Astronomers find a Famous Exoplanet’s Doppelganger

When it comes to extrasolar planets, appearances can be deceiving. Astronomers have imaged a new planet, and it appears nearly identical to one of the best studied gas-giant planets. But this doppelganger differs in one very important way: its origin. “We have found a gas-giant planet that is a virtual twin of a previously known planet, but it looks like the two objects formed in different ways,” said Trent Dupuy, astronomer at the Gemini Observatory and leader of the study.

Emerging from stellar nurseries of gas and dust, stars are born like kittens in a litter, in bunches and inevitably wandering away from their birthplace...

Mauro Sereno et al. Gravitational lensing detection of an extremely dense environment around a galaxy cluster, Nature Astronomy (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0508-y

A study published recently in the journal Nature Astronomy and which questions current models of structure formation in the universe is based on data obtained with the Gran Telescopio Canarias and among its authors is a team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). The structure of the universe can be compared to that of a sponge, often referred to as the cosmic web. Matter is concentrated along filaments which cross over each other, forming zones where most matter accumulates, and others where there is very little. At the densest points, galaxies group together, forming clusters...