Category Astronomy/Space

An artist’s impression of a gamma ray burst in space(Credit: ESO/A. Roquette)

A Queen’s University Belfast scientist has recreated the first ever mini version of a GRB in a laboratory, opening up a whole new way to investigate their properties and potentially unlocking some of the mysteries around alien civilisation. Gamma ray bursts are intense explosions of light and are among some of the brightest events that have ever been observed in the universe. However, because they occur in short bursts and originate in distant galaxies scientists have not been able to exactly pinpoint what causes them.

Some might even suggest they may be messages from advanced alien civilisations but many experts have predicted that the bursts are emitted when jets of particles are thrown out by massive astrophys...

This is the giant star, π1Gruis. Credit European Southern Observatory

An international team has produced the first detailed images of the surface of a giant star outside our solar system, revealing a nearly circular, dust-free atmosphere with complex areas of moving material, known as convection cells or granules, according to a recent study. The giant star, named π1Gruis, is one of the stars in the constellation Grus (Latin for the crane, a type of bird), which can be observed in the southern hemisphere. An evolved star in the last major phase of life, π1Gruis is 350 times larger than the Sun and resembles what our Sun will become at the end of its life in five billion years. Studying this star gives scientists insight about the future activity, characteristics and appearance of the Sun...

This image illustrates the “multi-messenger” emission from a gigantic reservoir of cosmic rays that are accelerated by powerful jets from a supermassive black hole. Credit: Kanoko Horio

New model connects the origins of very high-energy neutrinos, ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, and high-energy gamma rays with black-hole jets embedded in their environments. One of the biggest mysteries in astroparticle physics has been the origins of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, very high-energy neutrinos, and high-energy gamma rays. Now, a new theoretical model reveals that they all could be shot out into space after cosmic rays are accelerated by powerful jets from supermassive black holes.

The model explains the natural origins of all three types of “cosmic messenger” particles simultaneously, and is the...

Artist’s concept shows the gaseous exoplanet CoRoT-2b with a westward hot spot in orbit around its host star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC)

Puzzling finding raises new questions about atmospheric physics of giant planets. The hottest point on a gaseous planet near a distant star isn’t where astrophysicists expected it to be – a discovery that challenges scientists’ understanding of the many planets of this type found in solar systems outside our own. Unlike our familiar planet Jupiter, hot Jupiters circle astonishingly close to their host star – so close that it typically takes fewer than three days to complete an orbit. And one hemisphere of these planets always faces its host star, while the other faces permanently out into the dark.

Not surprisingly, the “day” side of the pl...