Category Astronomy/Space

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey and its Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey has transformed a two-dimensional image of the sky (left panel) into a three-dimensional map spanning distances of billions of light years, shown here from two perspectives (middle and right panels). This map includes 120,000 galaxies over 10% of the survey area. The brighter regions correspond to the regions of the Universe with more galaxies and therefore more dark matter. Credit: Jeremy Tinker and SDSS-III

A team of hundreds of physicists and astronomers constructed a 3D map to make one of the most precise measurements yet of the dark energy currently driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe. “We have spent 5 years collecting measurements of 1...

An artist’s portrayal of a Warm Jupiter gas-giant planet (r.) in orbit around its parent star, along with smaller companion planets. Image credit: Detlev Van Ravenswaay/Science Photo Library

After analyzing 4 years of Kepler space telescope observations, astronomers have given us our clearest understanding yet of a class of exoplanets called “Warm Jupiters,” showing that many have unexpected planetary companions. The team’s analysis provides strong evidence of the existence of 2 distinct types of Warm Jupiters, each with their own formation and dynamical history, ie those that have companions and thus, likely formed where we find them today; and those with no companions that likely migrated to their current positions.

According to Chelsea Huang, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophys...

The figures show the wind, temperature, and surface-atmosphere friction on a planet 1.45 times the size of the Earth in a 1-day orbit around an M dwarf. The two topmost figures show the wind and the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere. The two figures in the middle show the wind and the temperature on the surface of the planet. On the left-hand figures, the surface-atmosphere friction equals that on Earth. On the right-hand figures, there is ten times as much friction between surface and atmosphere than is the case on Earth. Both scenarios have a different impact on the climate of a planet: the climate represented in the right-hand figures is more habitable. Credit: KU Leuven – Ludmila Carone and Leen Decin

Astronomers from KU Leuven, Belgium, have shown that the interaction ...

This artist’s impression of the water snowline around the young star V883 Orionis, as detected with ALMA. Credit: A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF)/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

A violent outburst by the young star V883 Orionis has given astronomers their first view of a water “snowline” in a protoplanetary disk – the transition point around the star where the temperature and pressure are low enough for water ice to form. An abrupt increase in the brightness of the star “flash heated” the inner portion of the disk, pushing the water snowline out much farther than normal, enabling astronomers to image it with ALMA. Under normal conditions, the water snowline would be much too close to the protostar to observe directly, even with ALMA’s remarkable resolution.

Typically, heat from a young Sun-like star preve...