Category Astronomy/Space

A cross-section of underground ice is exposed at the steep slope that appears bright blue in this enhanced-color view from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The scene is about 550 yards wide. The scarp drops about 140 yards from the level ground in the upper third of the image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS

Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found 8 sites where thick deposits of ice beneath Mars’ surface are exposed in faces of eroding slopes. These 8 scarps, with slopes as steep as 55 degrees, reveal new information about the internal layered structure of previously detected underground ice sheets in Mars’ middle latitudes. The ice was likely deposited as snow long ago...

A comparison of a low resolution simulation (left) to the high-resolution simulation produced using Blue Waters (right) shows the effect of resolution on tilted accretion models. The high resolution model shows that precession and alignment slow down as a result of disk expansion due to magnetic turbulence.

Supercomputer power enables advanced simulations of relativistic jets’ behavior. Researchers, including a Northwestern University professor, have gained new insight into one of the most mysterious phenomena in modern astronomy: the behavior of relativistic jets that shoot from black holes, extending outward across millions of light years...

IMAGE: The 305-metre Arecibo telescope, in Puerto Rico, and its suspended support platform of radio receivers is shown amid a starry night. A flash from the Fast Radio Burst source FRB 121102 is seen: originating beyond the Milky Way, from deep in extragalactic space. CREDITS: Image design: Danielle Futselaar – Photo usage: Brian P. Irwin / Dennis van de Water / Shutterstock.com

Extragalactic source of radio-wave flashes resides in a powerfully magnetized astrophysical region. New detections of radio waves from a repeating fast radio burst have revealed an astonishingly potent magnetic field in the source’s environment, indicating that it is situated near a massive black hole or within a nebula of unprecedented power.

A year ago, the astronomers pinpointed the location of the enigmatic fas...

Size comparison of a dwarf galaxy (right inset, bottom) with a larger galaxy in the centre. Top inset: Dwarf galaxy overlain with some of the MaNGA data, revealing the winds from the supermassive black hole. Credit: Samantha Penny (Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth) and the SDSS collaboration

Scientists have solved a cosmic mystery by finding evidence that supermassive black holes prevent stars forming in some smaller galaxies. These giant black holes are over a million times more massive than the sun and sit in the centre of galaxies sending out powerful winds that quench the star-making process...