Category Astronomy/Space

A scientist from Tokyo Metropolitan University has solved the longstanding problem of a “dissonance” in gravitational waves emitted by a black hole.

Using high precision computing and a new theoretical physics framework, it was discovered that it was caused by a resonance between a pair of distinctive “modes” i.e. different ways in which a black hole can “ring.” The phenomenon offers new insights into the nascent field of black hole spectroscopy.

The research is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Black holes are astrophysical objects so dense that even light cannot escape their gravitational pull...

The world’s largest solar telescope, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, has reached an important milestone. After almost 15 years of preparation, the German instrument for the Inouye Solar Telescope, the Visible Tunable Filtergraph (VTF), has now taken its first images. The imaging spectro-polarimeter was developed and built at the Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) in Freiburg (Germany). The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen (Germany) is a partner in the project.

The data published now were obtained during the technical commissioning of the instrument...

A study led by Paolo Padoan, ICREA research professor at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), is challenging the understanding of planetary disk formation around young stars.

The paper, published in Nature Astronomy, reveals that the environment plays a crucial role in determining the size and lifetime of these planetary disks, which are the sites of planet formation.

When a star forms, it is surrounded by a spinning disk of gas and dust...

A new study shows that planets bigger than Earth and smaller than Neptune are common outside the Solar System.

An international team including astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) has announced the discovery of a planet about twice the size of Earth orbiting its star farther out than Saturn is to the sun.

These results are another examp...