Category Astronomy/Space

A dark cloud of cosmic dust snakes across this spectacular wide field image, illuminated by the brilliant light of new stars. This dense cloud is a star-forming region called Lupus 3, where dazzlingly hot stars are born from collapsing masses of gas and dust. This image was created from images taken using the VLT Survey Telescope and the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope and is the most detailed image taken so far of this region. Credit: ESO/R. Colombari

The Lupus 3 star forming region lies within the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), only 600 light-years away from Earth. It is part of a larger complex called the Lupus Clouds, which takes its name from the adjacent constellation of Lupus (The Wolf constellation)...

This is a 3-D radiation magneto-hydrodynamic FLASH simulation of the experiment, performed on the Mira supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory. The values demonstrate strong amplification of the seed magnetic fields by turbulent dynamo. Credit: Petros Tzeferacos/University of Chicago

Laser experiments verify ‘turbulent dynamo’ theory of how cosmic magnetic fields are created. By creating a hot turbulent plasma the size of a penny, that lasts a few billionths of a second, the researchers recorded how the turbulent motions can amplify a weak magnetic field to the strengths of those observed in our sun, distant stars, and galaxies...

An artist’s impression of a stellar system with three super-Earths. Credit: Courtesy of ESO

A star about 100 light years away in the Pisces constellation, GJ 9827, hosts what may be one of the most massive and dense super-Earth planets detected to date, according to new research led by Carnegie’s Johanna Teske. This new information provides evidence to help astronomers better understand the process by which such planets form. The GJ 9827 star actually hosts a trio of planets, discovered by NASA’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler/K2 mission, and all three are slightly larger than Earth. This is the size that the Kepler mission determined to be most common in the galaxy with periods between a few and several-hundred-days.

Intriguingly, no planets of this size exist in our Solar System...

Diverse mineralogy exhumed from the Martian subsurface: A false color image from the HiRISE instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows amazing diversity of rocks exhumed from the Martian subsurface a meteor impact in the Nili Fossae area. The image is 1 km across. This site and others like it contain rocks that were altered by fluids in the Martian crust billions of years ago, at the time when life first emerged on Earth. These rocks represent exploration targets that could teach us about the origin of life. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

However, possibilities for subsurface life may be more promising. Below the surface, hydrothermal systems on Mars may have provided the right environment for life on the Red Planet, researchers argue. For the last 2...