Category Astronomy/Space

Schematic representation of rotating disc galaxies in the early Universe (right) and the present day (left). Observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope suggest that such massive star-forming disc galaxies in the early Universe were less influenced by dark matter (shown in red), as it was less concentrated. As a result the outer parts of distant galaxies rotate more slowly than comparable regions of galaxies in the local Universe. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Observations of distant galaxies suggest they were dominated by normal matter. The presence of dark matter can explain why the outer parts of nearby spiral galaxies rotate more quickly than would be expected if only the normal matter that we can see directly were present...

Inside the Cats’s Paw Nebula as seen in an infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (left), ALMA discovered that an infant star is undergoing an intense growth spurt, shining nearly 100 brighter than before and reshaping its stellar nursery (right). Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), T. Hunter; C. Brogan, B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); GLIMPSE, NASA/JPL-Caltech

A massive protostar, deeply nestled in its dust-filled stellar nursery, recently roared to life, shining nearly 100 times brighter than before. This outburst, apparently triggered by an avalanche of star-forming gas crashing onto the surface of the star, supports the theory that young stars can undergo intense growth spurts that reshape their surroundings...

The spins of about 70% of the red giant stars observed in the clusters were strongly aligned in a study by researchers including Dr Dennis Stello.

A study of the internal sound waves created by starquakes, which make stars ring like a bell, has provided unprecedented insights into conditions in the turbulent gas clouds where stars were born 8 billion years ago. Astronomers used this asteroseismology approach to work out the orientation of the angle of spin of 48 stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The spins of about 70% of the red giant stars observed in the clusters were strongly aligned in a study by researchers including Dr Dennis Stello...

About 700 million years ago, runaway glaciers covered the entire planet in ice. Harvard researchers modeled the conditions that may have led to this so-called ‘snowball Earth.’ Credit: Image courtesy of NASA

Explaining a ‘once-in-a-billion-year event’. What caused the largest glaciation event in Earth’s history, known as ‘snowball Earth’? Geologists and climate scientists have been searching for the answer for years but the root cause of the phenomenon remains elusive. Now, Harvard University researchers have a new hypothesis about what caused the runaway glaciation that covered Earth pole-to-pole in ice. Researchers have pinpointed the start of what’s known as the Sturtian snowball Earth event to about 717 million years ago – give or take a few 100,000 years...