Category Astronomy/Space

This is an ALMA image of the dust disk around HL Tauri. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

A new analysis of ALMA data for young star HL Tauri provides yet more firm evidence of baby planets around the star. 2 gaps in the gas disk around HL Tauri were uncovered. The locations of these gaps in the gas match the locations of gaps in the dust found in the ALMA high resolution image taken in 2014. This discovery supports the idea that planets form in much shorter timescales than previously thought and prompts a reconsideration of alternative planet formation scenarios.

In November 2014, ALMA released a startling image of HL Tauri and its dust disk. This image, the sharpest ever taken for this kind of object, clearly depicts several gaps in the dust disk around the star...

This artist’s impression shows a possible seed for the formation of a supermassive black hole. Two of these possible seeds were discovered by an Italian team, using three space telescopes: the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

For years astronomers have debated how the earliest generation of supermassive black holes formed very quickly, relatively speaking, after the Big Bang. Now, an Italian team has identified 2 objects in the early Universe that seem to be the origin of these early supermassive black holes. The two objects represent the most promising black hole seed candidates found so far

The group used computer models and applied a new analysis method to data from the NASA Chandra X-ray...

Griffin and Dai developed the data collection methodology used to detect the gamma-ray emission from Arp 220. Credit: University of Oklahoma and NASA

A Uni of Oklahoma team has detected for the first time the most luminous gamma-ray emission from a galaxy -the merging galaxy Arp 220 is the nearest ultraluminous infrared galaxy to Earth, and it reveals the hidden extreme energetic processes in galaxies. The first gamma-ray detection of an ultraluminous infrafred galaxy occurs when the most energetic cosmic rays collide with the interstellar medium causing these galaxies to glow – expanding observations of these galaxies to the highest energy ranges...

Composite image of the galaxy cluster from three different filters on the Hubble Space Telescope. The wave charts (insets at left) show spectra of the multiply imaged systems. The fact that they share peaks at the same wavelength shows that they belong to the same source. At bottom right, the Keck I and Keck II Telescopes at Hawaii’s the W. M. Keck Observatory. Credit: BRADAC/HST/W. M. Keck Observatory

Discovery could help explain how ‘cosmic dark ages’ ended. Using the W. M. Keck Observatory on the summit on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the researchers detected the galaxy as it was 13 billion years ago. The researchers made the discovery using gravitational lensing to see the incredibly faint object, which was born just after the Big Bang...