Category Astronomy/Space

This is an artist’s impression of a Supernova. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. BACON (STSci)

Supernova discovery challenges known theories of the death of stars. An international team of astronomers led by Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) has made a bizarre discovery; a star that refuses to stop shining. Supernovae, the explosions of stars, have been observed in the thousands and in all cases they marked the death of a star. But a remarkable exception is a star that exploded multiple times over a period of more than 50 years. Their observations, which include data from Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii, are challenging existing theories on these cosmic catastrophes.

“The spectra we obtained at Keck Observatory showed that this supernova looked like nothing we had ever seen before...

Composite image of Abell 2744 region, with radio, X-Ray, and optical (visible light) data combined. Credit: Pearce et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF; Chandra, Subaru; ESO.

Multi-wavelength image helping astronomers decipher complex collision history. A giant collision of several galaxy clusters, each containing hundreds of galaxies, has produced this spectacular panorama of shocks and energy. The collisions generated shock waves that set off a celestial fireworks display of bright radio emission, seen as red and orange. In the center of the image, the purple indicates Xrays caused by extreme heating.

The region is collectively known as Abell 2744, some 4 billion light-years from Earth...

The sky around W Hydrae, as seen in visible light. Credit: Digitized Sky Survey

A Chalmers-led team of astronomers has for the first time observed details on the surface of an aging star with the same mass as the Sun. The star is a giant, its diameter twice the size of Earth’s orbit around the Sun, but also that the star’s atmosphere is affected by powerful, unexpected shock waves. The research is published in Nature Astronomy on 30 October 2017. The new ALMA images show for the first time details on the surface of the red giant W Hydrae, 320 light years distant in the constellation of Hydra, the Water Snake.

W Hydrae is an example of an AGB (asymptotic giant branch) star. Such stars are cool, bright, old and lose mass via stellar winds...

Astronomers at UMass Amherst and in Mexico, using the Large Millimeter Telescope located on the summit of a 15,000-foot extinct volcano in Mexico’s central state of Puebla, have detected the second most distant dusty, star-forming galaxy ever found in the universe, born witin the first one billion years after the Big Bang. It is the oldest object ever detected by the LMT. Credit: UMass Amherst

Astronomy team image one of the first massive galaxies to form, 12.8 billion years ago...