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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Cosmic Magnifying Lens reveals Inner Jets of Black Holes

    August 17, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Illustration shows a likely configuration of a gravitational lensing system discovered by OVRO. The 'milli-lens' is located in or near the intervening spiral galaxy. The lens is magnifying blobs of jet material within the active galaxy PKS1413+135, but the blobs are too small to be seen in the radio image (top left), taken by MOJAVE. Only when the blobs move far away from the yellow core do they expand and are visible as the pink blobs in the image. Credit: Anthony Readhead/Caltech/MOJAVE

    Illustration shows a likely configuration of a gravitational lensing system discovered by OVRO. The ‘milli-lens’ is located in or near the intervening spiral galaxy. The lens is magnifying blobs of jet material within the active galaxy PKS1413+135, but the blobs are too small to be seen in the radio image (top left), taken by MOJAVE. Only when the blobs move far away from the yellow core do they expand and are visible as the pink blobs in the image. Credit: Anthony Readhead/Caltech/MOJAVE

    New radio observations show clumps of gas streaming from supermassive black hole...

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    Cosmic Velocity Web: Motions of Thousands of Galaxies Mapped

    August 16, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The cosmic velocity web is represented by surfaces of knots in red and surfaces of filaments in gray. The black lines with arrows illustrate local velocity flows within filaments and toward knots. The Laniakea Supercluster basin of attraction that includes our Milky Way galaxy is represented by a blue surface. The region being displayed extends across one billion light years. Credit: Daniel Pomarede, Yehuda Hoffman, R. Brent Tully and Helene Courtois. Credit: Daniel Pomarede, Yehuda Hoffman, R. Brent Tully, Helene Courtois

    The cosmic velocity web is represented by surfaces of knots in red and surfaces of filaments in gray. The black lines with arrows illustrate local velocity flows within filaments and toward knots. The Laniakea Supercluster basin of attraction that includes our Milky Way galaxy is represented by a blue surface. The region being displayed extends across one billion light years. Credit: Daniel Pomarede, Yehuda Hoffman, R. Brent Tully and Helene Courtois. Credit: Daniel Pomarede, Yehuda Hoffman, R. Brent Tully, Helene Courtois

    The cosmic web – the distribution of matter on the largest scales in the universe – has usually been defined through the distribution of galaxies. Now, a new study by a team of astronomers from France, Israel and Hawaii demonstrates a novel approach...

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    Tidally Locked Exoplanets may be more Common than previously thought

    August 16, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Tidally locked bodies such as the Earth and moon are in synchronous rotation, each taking as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its host star or gravitational partner. New research from UW astronomer Rory Barnes indicates that many exoplanets to be found by coming high-powered telescopes also will probably be tidally locked — with one side permanently facing their host star, as one side of the moon forever faces the Earth. Credit: NASA

    Tidally locked bodies such as the Earth and moon are in synchronous rotation, each taking as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its host star or gravitational partner. New research from UW astronomer Rory Barnes indicates that many exoplanets to be found by coming high-powered telescopes also will probably be tidally locked — with one side permanently facing their host star, as one side of the moon forever faces the Earth. Credit: NASA

    Tidal locking results when there is no side-to-side momentum between a body in space and its gravitational partner and they become fixed in their embrace...

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    Supernova Collides with Nearby Star, taking astrophysicists by surprise

    August 15, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Only 55 million lightyears away, this is one of the closest supernovae discovered in recent years. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Santa Barbara

    Only 55 million lightyears away, this is one of the closest supernovae discovered in recent years. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California – Santa Barbara

    In the 2009 film “Star Trek,” a supernova hurtles through space and obliterates a planet unfortunate enough to be in its path. Fiction, of course, but it turns out the notion is not so farfetched. Using the nearby Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO), astrophysicists from UC Santa Barbara have observed something similar: an exploding star slamming into a nearby companion star. What’s more, they detected the fleeting blue glow from the interaction at an unprecedented level of detail...

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