Category Astronomy/Space

The remnant of Tycho’s supernova as seen in X-rays, showing the expanding shock wave. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSS

An international team of scientists from the Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), the Towson and Pittsburgh Universities (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, has shed new light on the origins of the famous Tycho’s supernova. The research debunks the common view that Tycho’s supernova originated from a white dwarf, which had been slowly accreting matter from its companion in a binary system.

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) serve as standard candles of modern observational cosmology; they also play a vital role in galactic chemical evolution. However, the origin of these gigantic cosmic explosions remains uncertain...

IceCube is a neutrino detector composed of 5,160 optical modules embedded in a gigaton of crystal-clear ice a mile beneath the geographic South Pole. PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

For a decade, astronomers have puzzled over fast radio bursts, FRBs, which were first detected in 2007 by astronomers scouring archival data from Australia’s Parkes Telescope, a 64-meter diameter dish best known for its role receiving live televison images from the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. But the antenna’s detection of the first FRB – and the subsequent confirmed discovery of nearly two dozen more powerful radio pulses across the sky by Parkes and other radio telsescopes – has sent astrophysicists scurrying to find more of the objects and to explain them.

“It’s a new class of astronomical ...

Oxygen-deficient dwarf galaxy hints at makings of early universe . The tiny star-forming galaxy, dubbed J0811+4730, is a proxy for primordial galaxies. Credit: University of Virginia

A recently discovered dwarf galaxy in the constellation Lynx may serve well as a proxy for better understanding the developing chemistry of the early universe, according to a research team that includes University of Virginia astronomers. Their new finding shows that the oxygen level in the little galaxy is the lowest yet discovered in any star-forming galaxy, likely resembling early nascent galaxies.

Astronomers know that the first galaxies during their forming stages were chemically simple – primarily made up of hydrogen and helium, elements made in the Big Bang during the first three minutes of the univer...

Montage of artist’s impressions of exoplanetary systems. Credit: Alexaldo

A group-analysis of 30 exoplanets orbiting distant stars suggests that size, not mass, is a key factor in whether a planet’s atmosphere can be detected. The largest population-study of exoplanets to date successfully detected atmospheres around 16 ‘hot Jupiters’, and found that water vapour was present in every case. The work by a UCL-led team of European researchers has important implications for the comparison and classification of diverse exoplanets. The results will be presented by Angelos Tsiaras at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2017 in Riga on Tuesday 19th September.

“More than 3,000 exoplanets have been discovered but, so far, we’ve studied their atmospheres largely on an individual, case-by...