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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Winds Blowing off a Dying Star

    November 10, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    High spatial-resolution image of AlO and SiO molecules around AGB star W Hydrae, observed using ALMA, with AlO molecule emissions in red and those from SiO molecules and the star in yellow.
    Credit: ALMA [ESO/NAOJ/NRAO], Takigawa et al, Kyoto University

    Scientists use ALMA to explain aluminum oxide enrichment around AGB stars. Stars like our Sun eject large amounts of gas and dust into space, containing various elements and compounds. Asymptotic giant branch – AGB – phase stars, near their end of life, are particularly significant sources of such substances in our galaxy. Formation of dust around AGB stars has been considered to play an important role in triggering acceleration of stellar wind, but the detailed mechanism of this acceleration has not been well explained.

    And there is yet anoth...

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    Expanding Light Echo Spotted around Supernova

    November 10, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space. The supernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an "X." The supernova was discovered on Jan. 21, 2014. The inset images at top reveal an expanding shell of light from the stellar explosion sweeping through interstellar space, called a "light echo." The images were taken 10 months to nearly two years after the violent event (Nov. 6, 2014 to Oct. 12, 2016). The light is bouncing off a giant dust cloud that extends 300 to 1,600 light-years from the supernova and is being reflected toward Earth. SN 2014J is classified as a Type Ia supernova and is the closest such blast in at least four decades. A Type Ia supernova occurs in a binary star system consisting of a burned-out white dwarf and a companion star. The white dwarf explodes after the companion dumps too much material onto it. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Yang (Texas A&M University and Weizmann Institute of Science); Acknowledgment: M. Mountain (AURA) and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

    Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space. The supernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an “X.” The supernova was discovered on Jan. 21, 2014. The inset images at top reveal an expanding shell of light from the stellar explosion sweeping through interstellar space, called a “light echo.” The images were taken 10 months to nearly two years after the violent event (Nov. 6, 2014 to Oct. 12, 2016). The light is bouncing off a giant dust cloud that extends 300 to 1,600 light-years from the supernova and is being reflected toward Earth. SN 2014J is classified as a Type Ia supernova and is the closest such blast in at least four decades...

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    Cosmos Code helps Probe Space Oddities

    November 9, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Shown here is a multi-physics simulation of an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) jet colliding with and triggering star formation within an intergalactic gas cloud (red indicates jet material, blue is neutral Hydrogen [H I] gas, and green is cold, molecular Hydrogen [H_2] gas. Credit: Chris Fragile

    Shown here is a multi-physics simulation of an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) jet colliding with and triggering star formation within an intergalactic gas cloud (red indicates jet material, blue is neutral Hydrogen [H I] gas, and green is cold, molecular Hydrogen [H_2] gas. Credit: Chris Fragile

    XSEDE ECSS program helps optimize astrophysics code for Knights Landing processors on Stampede2 supercomputer. Black holes make for a great space mystery. They’re so massive that nothing, not even light, can escape a black hole once it gets close enough. A great mystery for scientists is that there’s evidence of powerful jets of electrons and protons that shoot out of the top and bottom of some black holes. Yet no one knows how these jets form.

    Computer code called Cosmos now fuels supercomputer simu...

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    Astronomers Discover a Star that would Not Die

    November 9, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

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

    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...

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