Category Astronomy/Space

This artist’s impression shows a hot Jupiter planet orbiting close to one of the stars in the rich old star cluster Messier 67, in the constellation of Cancer (The Crab). Astronomers have found far more planets like this in the cluster than expected. This surprise result was obtained using a number of telescopes and instruments, among them the HARPS spectrograph at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The denser environment in a cluster will cause more frequent interactions between planets and nearby stars, which may explain the excess of hot Jupiters. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

New simulations of the jets produced by rotating supermassive black holes in the cores of galaxies show how, with enough power, they can force their way through surrounding gas and drill out of the galaxy, channeling hot gas into the interstellar medium (top). Less powerful jets get stalled inside the galaxy, however, dumping their hot gas inside and generally heating up the galaxy. These stalled jets may be part of the black hole feedback mechanism that periodically halts the inflow of gas that feeds the black hole. Simulations by Alexander Tchekhovskoy, a NASA Einstein postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, and Omer Bromberg, a former Lyman Spitzer Jr. postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University who is now at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The first images of CaSSIS show the Tharsis face of Mars at a resolution of 460km/px. The image was taken from a distance of 41 million kilometers. Credit: The resolution is expected to exceed the resolution of Hubble’s Pictures already this October. © ESA/Roscosmos/ExoMars/UniBe/CaSSIS